Cities In Reverse
by dragondark
Summary: AU. Facing university with a voice in his head, a lost year and his best friends growing apart, the last thing Sora needs is to add 'save the world' to his to-do list. Sadly, the apocalypse waits for no man. Or term paper.
1. the boy who didn't exist

**Title:** Cities in Reverse (Part 1 of ??)  
**Rating:** PG for this chapter - will rise for later chapters.  
**Summary:** It's an old story. Evil threatens world. Boy defeats evil, saves world and learns important life lessons. It's too bad that, this time, the boy in question doesn't technically exist. University AU.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Kingdom Hearts. Never have, never will.

* * *

prologue: the boy who didn't exist

-

-

Before Sora had left, his mother had made a list of things to watch out for at university. She'd warned him about the dangers of skipping classes, drug dealers, and shaking hands with people who had colds. She'd created an entire slideshow devoted to the virtues of doing one's laundry, subtitled Attack Of The Sentient Mushrooms: Dangerous Species Discovered In Laundry Baskets Through The Ages. Now, in his time of dying, Sora just wished that he'd listened a little harder when she'd given him the list of things to pack in case of emergency.

He was pretty sure that there'd been a kit for not being squashed to death by your best friend somewhere on it.

Footsteps carried through the door flung open in Kairi's wake. "Nice size for a closet," Riku remarked as Sora flailed and scrabbled for a grip on something, anything that would save him. He peered down at the scattered cardboard boxes – Sora hadn't quite finished unpacking when he'd opened the door and Kairi had tackled him – before nudging them out of the way. "Didn't know they still made 'em so small."

Sitting squarely on Sora's chest, Kairi made a face at him. "Oh, yeah, rub it in," she said. "Just because you don't have to live on-campus any more. You'll miss all the fun, secluded in your little apartment."

"Tell me that again after you get a roommate who wanders in at three in the morning and throws up all over your notes."

"You mean the notes you took that said, and I quote, 'frlwtz pizza grble'?"

"Kairi--" Sora managed, arms flopping on the mattress. His vision had started to shimmer. "Cho... king--"

Kairi looked down. "Hmm? Oh!" She scrambled to her feet and offered him a hand. "Sorry. I forgot. I guess you're still kinda..."

_Deep breaths. One, two, three… _Soon his vision had cleared enough for Sora to see the worry in her blue eyes. "It's okay," he promised, waving her away with a wan smile. "I'm lots better now. Give it two more months and I'll be sitting on _you_."

She planted her hands on her hips. "Hmph. You wish! I still can't believe you didn't tell us that you were coming to Ansem University until the last minute."

Sora sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his head. "I didn't know if I could still get in or not. I barely got an interview. Mom had to threaten the Dean of Admissions."

There was a thoughtful pause.

"Isn't he the one who keeps all those lances on his office wall?" Kairi asked.

"Professor Xaldin," Riku said, leaning against the wall. His eyes were steady on Sora, though when he spoke his tone was casual. "I took his course in ancient weaponry last trimester."

"Huh?" Sora glanced between Kairi and Riku. "I thought Xaldin was his first name."

Kairi perched on the railing at the foot of Sora's bed. "It is," she said. "Ansem University's just weird. Everybody on staff goes by their first names."

"Probably because the university was founded in honor of some crazy guy with amnesia who only _had_ a first name."

"A-ha!" Kairi's head came up. She jabbed a finger at him. "I knew you didn't sleep through the whole orientation!"

Riku rolled his eyes. "That's because I had to go through it twice. You dragged me to yours, remember?"

"It wasn't dragging," she protested. "More like light tugging. You folded after five seconds, so it's not like you really tried to get out of it."

"I didn't fold."

"Did too. Like cheap origami."

"Whatever. Anyway, hard to sleep when someone elbows you every five minutes."

Rising, Kairi put her hands behind her back and skipped over to him. "Admit it," she sang, "you _liked_ it."

Riku opened his mouth, then closed it again under the combined force of Sora and Kairi's stares. "It was okay," he admitted grudgingly.

"Okay?" Kairi laughed and whirled back to Sora. "He bought Ansem's biography," she confided. "And slept with it under his pillow for a whole week!"

"Shut up, Kairi." Riku aimed a lazy kick in her direction. Giggling, she danced out of the way.

As they bickered, the last of the tension from the eight-hour drive seeped from his shoulders. Sora leaned back and laughed. For a moment, the dorm walls vanished and he was fifteen again, the waves hissing around his ankles and his toes digging into the sand. Fifteen, when the world was an endless stream of summer and the only boundary on his world was the sea – there on the beach with his two best friends in the world.

Words rose. A ghost uncoiled in the back of his mind, snaking through his thoughts. Sora shoved them back. Something of the struggle must have shown on his expression, for when he turned back to Riku and Kairi, both of them had stopped and were staring at him.

"Sora?" Kairi's brow furrowed. She reached out, but Sora flinched and she drew back again. Her frown deepened. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, but his voice sounded like a stranger's. "I kind of have to..." At last, Sora took a deep breath and blurted it out: "Roxas is back."

The air stilled. Behind Riku, a teetering stack of boxes overbalanced and crashed to the floor, but Riku was oblivious. The sling of his shoulders was tight; his whole body had sharpened in focus. "Back?" he demanded. "What do you mean, back? How many riots did he cause this time?"

Sora flushed. "He said sorry when that happened! Anyway, he promised never to do it again."

"Uh huh." Riku folded his arms, his frame still taut. "Just stay away from the zoo. I don't think we can convince any of our parents to pay the fee again, and my financial aid won't cover fines for stampeding flamingos."

He'd meant to tell them later, when the shock of seeing them after months of being sequestered in his house had worn off. But now that he'd started, there was no point in delaying it any more. "That's not all, though."

Riku shook his head. " How many more voices?"

"No, not more voices, it's not _that_ big. It's not like Roxas is breeding up there." Sora halted. "I think."

Roxas did not speak, but Sora felt a sudden indignation flash through his veins. By the time he'd restrained it, Riku had turned to the door. "In that case," he said as he strolled out, "let's go to lunch. I haven't eaten all morning because Kairi wanted to stake out your place."

"Hey, you wanted to see him too!"

"Yeah, but _you_ fell asleep on your shift."

"I did not!"

"Did too. You drooled all over my shirt."

Kairi flicked at him in dismissal and glanced back for Sora. "Come on, Sora. Hurry up." She smiled. "Or you're buying."

"That's not f—" Sora sprang out of bed, almost tripping over his suitcase in his haste to get to the door. Kairi was waiting for him at the threshold as he skidded to a stop.

"It's okay, you know. About Roxas." She laced her fingers. "Namine's been worried about him."

"You mean, you still talk to--"

She smiled at him, but it was Namine's smile - gentler, a little less confident – and Namine's odd, perceptive gaze slanting out through Kairi's eyes. "Extra personalities have to stick together, right?"

* * *

Roxas had begun in scars: a far-flung galaxy of bruises and scratches across his body. Being ten, Sora thought nothing of them. He blamed the sand that poured from his clothes each sunset when he returned from the beach; the rough path to perfecting the art of climbing trees; Riku, who seemed to have hit an early growth spurt that summer and used his newfound advantage to sit on Sora whenever possible.

It was only when he started to hear the voice that he realized something else might be the problem.

He didn't figure it out right away. Everyone had an imaginary friend at one point in their lives, right? True, Sora was kind of old for one. He'd never really needed an invented companion before – not when he had two real ones at his side. But things changed – things _had_ changed – and Roxas's company was much better than being alone.

Then came the day when Roxas was sitting in a corner – not a real corner, he couldn't _see_ Roxas no matter how he tried – and Sora was struggling to do his homework. Instead of letting him be, Roxas came over to watch him do it. After the fifth problem, he said, _No, that's wrong_, and reached out to fix Sora's errors.

And Sora's hand started to move on its own.

After the first scare, it wasn't really a big deal. Roxas wasn't invasive; he came and went like a spirit, and hardly ever spoke. Plus, he was was better at mathematics than Sora would ever be and could be persuaded – through horrifically sloppy mistakes – to correct Sora's homework for him. And it was nice – great, even – to have company during the school season after Kairi's parents started cracking down on her studies and Riku tumbled into the black hole known as school sports.

Then he started to forget things.

Little idle facts, like what he'd been doing in social studies or what he'd said to cause his art teacher's mouth to screw so tight every time she looked at him. He'd never had a great memory for school facts, so he didn't worry about it - didn't even bother to ask Roxas whether he knew what they'd been taught in science that day. Eventually he really did forget about it and it slipped from his thoughts into oblivion.

Until the day his eighth-grade language arts teacher passed back their assignments.

She got through half the stack without blinking, handing each over with mechanical precision. As her eye fell on the next paper, however, she stopped, adjusted her glasses and squinted.

"Roxas?" she called at last, and Sora felt shock slide through his nerves like a knife.

He walked home without Kairi or Riku that day, stumbling blind down the sidewalk with his backpack heavy on his spine. For several blocks, they didn't say anything. When he reached for Roxas at last, he said only, _Is it because you're lonely?_

This clearly threw Roxas. _What?_

_That's why I keep losing time, right? You're coming out. Because there's nobody to talk to but me. _Sora hesitated. Roxas kept silent, and the quiet filled him until he could not think._ Is that why?_

_I guess. _He could feel it as Roxas shifted: his restlessness clouded Sora's veins. _Sometimes I just get bored. And you need to stop doing the math problems wrong on purpose. I don't always get to all of them and then the teacher gives us funny looks_.

_Riku said that math was going to take over our brains,_ Sora said after a second's thought._ I didn't think he meant this, though._

_Yeah, I don't think he saw this coming._

_So… are you going to do it again?_

_Not if you don't want me to. It'd be nice to come out, though,_ Roxas said. _Once in a while. Eat ice cream. Feel the sun_. He sounded so wistful that Sora felt guilty – actually felt the weight of it twist in his chest like a snake. Just being in school was confining enough. He couldn't imagine what it must be like, shut up in the corner of someone's imagination, brought out once in a while to do boring things like math and memorizing timelines. Just because he'd done it all without thinking didn't mean it was any less cruel. Roxas was fun to be around, and nice. He deserved better than that.

_Okay,_ he said. _So we'll share._ It was a simple revelation, offered as easily as a breath. Roxas didn't respond, and Sora took the opportunity to enjoy the peace of the afternoon. Then the rest of it caught up to him. _Hey! Does that mean you're the one who ate all of Mom's sea-salt ice cream?_

This time, the silence that emanated from Roxas sounded distinctly shifty.

* * *

It was actually kind of funny how easy it was to settle: during school, Roxas got math and art (since the teacher hated them both anyway, she might as well hate the one who asked her where she'd gotten her toupee), and Sora got gym and language arts. Roxas didn't really want more time than that, but Sora insisted on telling Riku and Kairi about it, since Roxas might want to hang out with them someday and how would they feel if they found out that he'd been lurking around just watching them for years?

_I don't lurk and it's already been four years_, Roxas said, but he agreed.

They told Riku first. Kairi had disappeared under a fresh tsunami of parental expectations, which had taken the form of enrolling her in a pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-law school preparation course. So they waited until after school, then caught Riku as he was heading to blitzball practice.

As it turned out, there wasn't that much to worry about. Riku just stared, then shrugged. "So?"

"Huh?" Sora said. "Didn't you--"

"You're still you, right? Still Sora."

"Yeah, but... sometimes I won't be."

Riku bounced the ball on his knees. "Does..."

"Roxas."

"Does Roxas do stuff that might get you in trouble?"

"No. He doesn't do anything." _Not yet_, said Roxas, and Sora could _feel_ him staring out at Riku in a way that boded ill. Fumbling around in his mind, Sora sort of shoved at him and, after a long moment, felt him give way with a bad grace.

"…don't see the problem," Riku was saying. "As long as he doesn't try to take over." He looked at Sora – really looked at him this time, and there was an intentness to his gaze that Sora couldn't read. "You won't disappear, right? It doesn't..."

"Nah," Sora said. He grinned, linking his hands behind his head. "You don't get rid of me that easily!"

"Good." Riku looked away. The blitzball dropped to his feet. "'Cause I'd hate to have to buy a punching bag."

"...Hey!"

* * *

Kairi had been different.

"You like him, right?" she asked, leaning an elbow on her books. Her mother had gone downstairs only after extensive protests and trailing an announcement that she was timing Sora's visit, and if it lasted a speck more than fifteen minutes she was going to have _words_ with his parents.

Sora stuffed his hands into his pockets. He always felt grubby whenever he spent more than five minutes with Kairi's mother, as if he'd come in fresh from a day of shell-picking at the beach. "Who?"

"Roxas, silly."

"I guess I do, kinda. How'd you know?"

She smiled at him. It was as if the sun had flipped on. "You're you, Sora," she said. "You wouldn't just let something like this happen. You're the strongest person I know." She cocked her head. "Just don't tell Riku I said that."

He laughed. "It's a promise!"

"Can you feel what he feels?"

"Sometimes," Sora said after a pause, because there wasn't really a way to describe what it was like, having Roxas around. He got the feeling that it might have been hard to remember who he was after a while if it weren't for the fact that Roxas was so very different from him – Roxas didn't talk much, but his presence was strong, almost overwhelming. "It's a little weird."

"What's it like?"

"I dunno. He gets lonely, I guess. The only person he really talks to is me."

"Will he talk to me?"

"Hold on, I'll ask." _Roxas?_

They were still adjusting to the idea of sharing: Roxas was better at blocking things than speaking them; and so, as he tried to form the words, Sora felt bits and pieces of his thoughts sliding through: Kairi was kind and Roxas liked her – much better than he liked Riku, actually – but she was still _Sora's_ friend. No matter what he did, Kairi wouldn't be able to help herself from looking for flashes of Sora in Roxas, and he wanted friends, but he didn't want to be someone's ghost—

"He doesn't want to, does he?"

Sora didn't realize that she had spoken until he saw her gaze fixed on him, bright and trusting. "Huh?" As it filtered through, he waved his hands in quick denial. "Kairi, it's not that, he just—"

Kairi touched his arm. "It's okay," she said, and he stopped. "I've got an idea."

"What?'

Her eyes sparkled as she pressed a finger to her lips. "It's a secret!"

Before he could question her, Kairi's mother started up the stairs, footsteps sounding into the room like thunderclaps, and Sora was forced to make a hasty exit through the window. "Tell you on movie night!" Kairi hissed at him as he clambered down the oak. She sounded happier than he had heard from her in days. Sora tried to give her a thumbs-up and nearly fell out of the tree.

* * *

Movie night was a tradition they'd arranged after Kairi's parents had gone neurotic and started tossing about ominous terms like 'M.B.A' and 'pre-med' at a girl who hadn't even graduated elementary school yet. On Fridays, they'd gather up all of Kairi's insane textbooks and drag them over to Riku's house for what was ostensibly a study session. In reality, Riku would pick three random movies out of his father's extensive collection and they'd watch them in the den while trying to figure out how to get rid of the books without arousing suspicion.

To be fair, this had given them a thorough education in things like What To Do When Killer Tomatoes Attack.

Kairi was usually the earliest of the three. Once, when blitzball practice had run late, she'd even beat Riku to his house and made it halfway through _Killer Tomatoes Eat France!_ before he came in at last. That Friday, however, she didn't show up until towards the end of their second movie.

"Look who decided to show up after all—" Riku started, glancing back, and halted abruptly. Without looking away, he found the remote and paused. "Jesus, Kairi, what happened to you?"

Kairi – looked down, toeing the carpet. She tucked her hands underneath her arms as if to hide her white summer dress. "Hello, Riku," she said quietly.

"Kairi?" Sora jumped up from the couch, striding towards her. Before he could touch her, however, Roxas said, _That's not Kairi._

_What?_

_Don't you see it? She's not Kairi_.

Sora stopped, lowering his arms. The girl who was not Kairi still hadn't looked up. Kairi, Sora thought, would have met his eyes, would have grinned and teased him about not knowing how to greet her. She would have done a thousand things by now. The girl before him only stood and waited.

Uncertainly, he asked, "Who… are you?"

She tilted her head. He glimpsed Kairi's pleased look in her eyes. "Namine," she answered. "And you must be…"

This time he felt it: Roxas' waiting presence rising from the depths of his mind like a storm. Sora let go, or tried to. It was still such a strange thought to be splitting his life with someone else – as if a body were just a house, just a frame for other things. Eventually they figured it out, and Roxas surfaced to smile down at Namine. "I'm Roxas," he said.

"…what are you guys _doing_," Riku said from the couch.

Drifting at the back of their shared thoughts with nothing better to do than observe, Sora could see the strain that snapped through Namine as Kairi held back the instinctive retort. Namine wasn't real after all, just a ghost Kairi had conjured up to keep Roxas company. Roxas knew it too, but Sora could feel happiness humming through his thoughts like quiet electricity. It was enough.

"Seriously, I have the weirdest friends in the world," Riku muttered. "If you guys don't get over here right now, I'm going to finish watching _Night of the Living Dead_ without you."

The moment passed. Namine straightened and the illusion of her slipped away into Kairi. White dress flaring behind her, she marched over to the sofa and planted herself on the far side of the couch. "I was introducing Namine to Roxas," Kairi told him. "You should have come over to say hello." As Roxas returned to Sora's seat, she beamed up at him and patted the space between herself and Riku.

"Great," Riku said. "More reasons for me to call the asylum." In the flickering lights of the attacking zombies, Roxas could barely see the hard twist to his mouth and his brows drawing together. It disappeared as he caught Roxas' eye.

"Just remember," he added, "Roxas and Namine don't get votes on movie night. Unless they're on my side."

* * *

And so it went for two years.

Midway through junior year, Sora came down with a fever. His mother checked his temperature and promptly forbade him from walking, talking, or going to school. This was just as well, since by lunch he was delirious.

In his dreams he walked through a desert full of monsters and into a sea of doors. As he passed them, finger-bones reached through the locks, grasping for his limbs. They never reached him; their wrists stuck in the locks, trapped and writhing. He wanted to stop and help them, but his legs never slowed; he walked away as those skeletal hands strained to touch him and never looked back.

For instants and centuries and days, Sora wandered among the dunes, weaving his way back to the doors. Each time he returned, he could hear a faint choir growing louder.

By the third return, he knew that they were screaming.

He didn't know when he woke. It was so simple a thing that he didn't see how he could have missed how to do it in the dream. One day, he just opened his eyes, and there they were: his parents clustered at the foot of the bed, and Riku at his side.

Sora blinked rustily. "Guys?" he said – or started to say. His voice cracked and faltered before he could make it through. His parents gasped and clung together, both almost falling over themselves to babble at him, though he could barely make out the words. He turned his head to find that Riku had sort of just – crumpled at his side, one hand tight on Sora's wrist.

"I was worried," he said in low tones. "We were all so worried. D'you know how long you've been like that? You idiot. _Idiots._" In spite of the chaos, Sora could hear that Riku's words were cracking too.

_They were worried for us_, he told Roxas. _Us. You and me_.

No response came.

_Roxas?_

Only in the wake of his own words did he feel it: the void where Roxas had been. There was no presence there now. Sora was alone inside his own head for the first time in years. Roxas was gone.

* * *

Kairi leaned both elbows on the table and knocked. Sora started out of his memories. "Is that why you were sick for most of senior year, too? You didn't come to school and your mom wouldn't let us anywhere near you." She sipped at her coffee, made a horrible face, and elbowed it discreetly in Riku's direction. "I came up with this whole big plan to get in to see you. _Riku_ stopped me."

"Hey, it's not like I wanted to," Riku snapped, and Sora could see the differences in him, then: the sharper lines to his jaw, lankness of his pale hair, deep shadows under his eyes that had just started to fade. It must have been hard enough for Kairi, Roxas thought for them both, who'd have been there to check with his mother every week. Riku would have been away for his first year of college. He couldn't have come back very often, no matter how he wanted to. "What if we'd gotten him sicker?"

"I know." Kairi looked down at her plate. "I was just so worried."

"I'm sorry," Sora said. "I didn't mean to make you guys feel bad."

They all fell silent, picking listlessly at their separate bowls. Kairi recovered first. "It's all right, Sora. But from now on, you have to get better faster, okay?" She brandished her spoon. "Or else Riku and I really _will_ break into your room in the middle of the night."

Riku picked up her discarded coffee and dropped it on Sora's tray. "You say that now," he remarked. "Wait 'til you hit finals. You won't even think about doing anything other than studying then."

"No, that's _you_. Just because you can't stand to be second doesn't mean everyone else can't. Oh!" She punched her palm. "Sora, what were you going to say about Roxas?"

"Huh?" Sora scratched his head.

"After the fever, you said," she prompted. "He came back, but..?"

"Oh yeah." He nodded. "Roxas is a little bit… different now."

"Wasn't he always a little bit different?" Riku asked. "I thought that was the point."

"No, I mean he doesn't… It's like he's not the same person anymore."

Riku stared. "So, what," he said. "Even your multiple personalities have multiple personalities?"

Sora toyed with his spoon. "It's not really a personality, I don't think. He just kind of..."

_Forgets_, he wanted to say, but that wasn't really the right word. It was still the same presence, same sensation of another soul settling over his memories. Sometimes it would seem perfectly normal, as if Roxas hadn't disappeared for a year and come back with no idea of where he'd been. He talked just as he had before. Then, just when Sora was on the brink of forgetting, Roxas would _turn_ and all his thoughts would flash to winter - but only for an instant.

Afterwards he'd frown and retreat, and Sora wouldn't hear from him for a while.

"Okay," Kairi said. Sora started, realizing that he'd been staring gloomily down at his rice. "You guys are so depressing that you're actually making my steak melt. Let's talk about something else."

"So," Riku said dryly. "How 'bout them--"

"_Not_ blitzball." She turned to Sora. "Hey. What courses did you sign up for?"

"Well... I got here late, so I'm getting the really basic ones." He counted them off. "That one computer science course that counts for math credit…" _I'm not helping you with computers_, Roxas said. _Anything that explodes in there is your own fault. _"German 300. History 250..."

Kairi beamed. "Oh, yeah! I'm taking that with Professor Donald."

"Hey, me too!"

"Man." Riku leaned back in his chair to fix them both with a superior, pitying look. "You guys are in for it."

"What?"

"Didn't you hear yet? Professor Donald flunks half his class on a regular basis. If it weren't for Goofy and the grading curve, nobody would ever pass."

"Goofy?"

"History 250's a joint class, Sora." Kairi looked at him wryly, eyes slanting. "Did you forget to read the course book?"

"Uhhh..." His guilty look was answer enough.

"You're going to get behind," Riku said, drumming his fingers along the edge of the table. "I had him for a class last year, and—"

"Riku, whose class _didn't_ you take last year?"

"Keep talking like that and you can borrow someone else's notes."

Kairi only smiled at him. "But I trust you, Riku," she said. "You wouldn't leave a friend in need, would you?"

Riku grumbled.

Laughing, Sora pushed back his chair to get dessert. As he strode towards the ice cream cart, he bumped shoulders with someone in passing. "Oh!" He backed up a few steps. "Sorry."

The stranger's brilliant eyes widened and narrowed in an instant, flicking over Sora's features. His mouth tightened, lips pressed thin. Then, all at once, he relaxed. "Sure, it's nothing." He dismissed it with a wave of a gloved hand, already looking elsewhere. "Move along, kid."

Sora wandered on. The stranger did not.

Ducking into the nearest alcove, he settled in to watch as Sora dug enthusiastically and somewhat ineptly at the ice cream. He didn't move, even when a shorter figure came up beside him. "Of course," the other remarked at last. "Stay here. Someone is bound to notice you and deport you from campus – which, I'm certain, is precisely your intent. Would you like to report our plans to the other side while you're at it?"

"Nice to see you too." The first man leaned an elbow on the wall of the alcove. "You sure we got the right guy?"

"I am certain."

"'Cause I've gotta say, he doesn't look much like--"

"If you'd like, you may approach him again."

"Really now."

The second man crossed his arms. "So long as you're willing to face the consequences, who am I to stop you? Each of us is to have unchecked autonomy, remember. Freedom from interference. And if it is your will to summarily ruin what we have been building for centuries--"

"Talk about easy to annoy. You should work on that." With a grand whirl, he started up the stairs out of the dining area. His companion followed, brows twitching. "So who're we sending in for recon?"

"You and I are to go in first and see if a subtle extraction can be managed. If it cannot..."

"Got it."

"No, you don't."

"Really? What'd I miss?"

"Everything I was going to say before you interrupted me."

"And what _were_ you going to say?" Before the second could answer, the first swept on. "Let me guess: ominous threat, babble about how we have to bring the walls down soon if we're gonna get anywhere, icy sneer, ominous threat?"

"Bear in mind that this mission is not for your _amusement_, Axel."

"Don't worry about it. I've got this." Axel cracked his knuckles. He glanced over the railing for one last look. Sora had rejoined the table and all three of them were laughing now. "Just sit back and enjoy the ride, Zexion."

"The ride to Hell, I suppose?" Zexion said scathingly. Axel only quickened his pace and disappeared into the darkness of the hall.

_to be continued_

* * *

**reviews**: are fantastic. Critical or not, I like hearing from people.


	2. like the deserts miss the rain

**Title**: Cities in Reverse (Part 2 of ??)  
**Rating**: PG-13.  
**Summary**: It's an old story. Evil threatens world. Boy defeats evil, saves world and learns important life lessons. It's too bad that, this time, the boy in question doesn't technically exist. University-urban fantasy AU.  
**Disclaimer**: Kingdom Hearts belongs to – Disney and Square Enix. The exact proportions are mysterious to me.

* * *

chapter one: like the deserts miss the rain

-

-

He'd thought, with Roxas back, that the dreams would stop.

They didn't.

(How can an unformed door be unlocked?)

It was the desert again – the one he'd visited in his fever. Some force had changed it while he was gone. The dunes on either side of the horizon had grown, curving the world into a valley. Crooked gates sprang out of the sand, their black bars twisted with thorns and chains. In the distance he could hear the savage rhythm of an endless drumming.

(What is a door?)

He ran.

Riddles and blood and ghosts flowed around his footsteps. A sea of hands caught at his legs, his arms, his hair, but he didn't halt. He couldn't. If he hesitated, even to look back, it would find him.

_Who?_ he cried, and felt himself falter in his next step. _Hey! You can hear me! Wait!_ But his body ran on, grim and relentless. Already he could feel it: the ground crumbling to ash under his heels, the light sinking into his skin like teeth, the rising presence of a creature that knew him for an enemy. He had no choice. To turn back was to die. A few more steps meant a few more breaths, another moment before it caught up with him.

_You can do it, _he shouted._ You can face this!_ In response, his hands – no, they weren't his hands; they were harder and smaller than his –only clenched against the bite of two cold rings.

There was no choice.

He ran - ran until he was gasping, gasped for air just as the dusty winds sliced into him. Sand caught in his lungs and he choked, flailing to a stop at the edge of a cliff. The ground was breaking up underneath him. He started to inch away from the edge before remembering the thing still in pursuit. On the rim of the earth, he teetered. Behind him lay a collapsing world; before him, a void.

One second to decide.

He whirled and leapt into the light.

* * *

"Sora? Hey, Sora!"

Another voice. At least this one sounded friendlier than the last. And it wasn't asking him strange questions about doors, which was starting to become a definite plus. Still, the warmth that surrounded him was nice and quiet. If he replied, there'd probably be complicated things like 'walking' and 'thinking' in his future, and he wasn't too sure that he was ready to deal with those. "…d'nno th'answer…" he mumbled, turning over. "N'more…"

Something sharp poked him in the side. Sora jolted awake. Instantly, he rolled out of bed – or tried to. The corner of the bedsheet stuck between mattress and desk. He had a moment to see a familiar face before his sleepy grip gave way and he tumbled off the other side.

On the other side of the room, someone mumbled and stirred, but Kairi ignored them. She climbed over the bed. "Sora? You okay?"

Rubbing at one eye, Sora yawned and stood. "Yeah, I'm—" He paused. His hand dropped to his side. "Huh? Kairi?"

"Hey." She curled her legs under herself, beaming. "Good morning to you, too, sleepyhead."

"Morning," Sora said belatedly. "Hey, how'd you get into my room?"

_The mysterious powers of girl-teleportation. It's how they manage to do so much shopping and still beat boys out for grades_.

_Good morning, Roxas._

"Your roommate let me in." Kairi nodded at the anonymous lump wrapped in blankets on the other bed. "Nice guy."

Sora stared, first at the other person who'd apparently _moved in_ while he was sleeping, then at the clock perched on his dresser flashing impossible numbers in his dazed eyes. So obviously he had been a little more tired than he thought when he'd come in yesterday. He'd fallen asleep around seven, and now it was— "_Six-thirty?_"

"Yup. We gave you an extra half-hour 'cause you just got here. Most of the dining halls don't open until seven, but there's a nice coffee place by the lake that's open by five. You _have_ to try the hot chocolate." When he didn't move to dress, Kairi reached out and poked him again. "Well, come on, Sora. What are you waiting for?"

"Isn't it kind of… early?"

_Not for the people in Finland_, Roxas supplied, and Sora felt a burst of Roxas's amusement – along with a deep twist of worry for a fact he hadn't reached just yet. _Let's move to Finland. They have hot chocolate there, too, you know._

Kairi gave him a Look. "And who was the one who woke us up before dawn every morning on that camping trip?"

Sora laughed. The lump in the corner muttered something that could have been a secret or a curse, and he dropped his voice to a whisper. "Okay, okay, I'm coming. Just give me a second to get dressed."

"All right, then." Kairi swung herself off the bed. Halfway to the door, she hesitated and looked back. "Oh, yeah, get your stuff, too. We're going to show you around campus a little, then head straight to class. You said you had German at nine-thirty, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't know where the building is yet." He'd meant to look after dinner, but there'd been that bit with the falling asleep and the dreams, so he'd lost his chance.

"I'll show you. Riku has class at eight-thirty, so..."

"Where _is_ Riku?"

"Out waiting in the hall. We figured that your roommate'd still be sleeping, so it probably wasn't a good idea for Riku to come in. You still haven't unpacked all your stuff and you know how he gets around cardboard boxes."

In spite of himself, Sora laughed again. His roommate growled; Kairi slipped out while Sora was whispering a frantic "Sorry!" and starting to shuffle through his things, in search of the one true cardboard box packed to the brim with clothes.

Five minutes later, he stepped out into the hallway armed with slacks, the t-shirt he'd slept in, and a rustling box in his arms. Both Riku and Kairi were leaning on the opposite wall, Riku in the usual jeans and casual shirt and Kairi in a chemise, red skirt and tennis shoes.

Her grin widened as his eyes met hers, and she stepped away from the wall. "You know, Sora, when I said to get your stuff, I didn't mean _all_ your stuff. We don't get to move out for another thirty weeks."

Sora shook his head. "It's not mine."

Riku approached, leaning in to look at the box. Its flaps had been loosely taped together. "Then what is it?"

"Remember that pet spider you had for about a week?" He lifted the box; the sound of little limbs skidding on cardboard scratched the air. "It settled down and had a family. In my sweatshirt."

"Good thing you found out before you tried to wear it," Riku said. "What's the matter, did it scare you or something?"

"Not really. I think I got most of them." Sora patted the top flap, fleetingly proud. Then he added, "But if my roommate gets poisoned—"

"You'll have a room all to yourself. Could be worth it, come midterms." He smirked at Sora's sudden expression. "Relax. They took out the venom sacs at the store. Pretty sure they wouldn't sell dangerous pets in a supermarket."

"It's okay, Sora," Kairi said. She nudged Riku. "Riku'll come and help you look for the others after class." She tossed Riku a pleasant, guileless beam before either of them could speak again. "Won't you?"

After a brief pause and a scowl at Kairi, for reasons Sora didn't really understand, Riku shrugged. "Yeah, fine. It's not like I'd have anything better to do."

It sounded grim and half-hearted, but Sora knew better. He smiled. "Thanks."

"Sure." Riku started down the hall. "Come on. We have to hurry. It's a fifteen-minute walk and you wouldn't believe the number of weirdos who line up at six in the morning to get their coffee there."

* * *

Considering the fact that Riku had been saying 'at six in the morning' in the same tones that someone else would say 'in the lowest circle of hell', it was actually kind of pretty outside. The skies had lightened into that strange shade of before-blue and the sun had just crested the horizon, layering the world in streaks. Sora had seen most of it on the drive in – although, to be fair, at the time he'd been somewhat occupied with finding proof of the myth known as 'a parking space on move-in day' – but sunrise left the buildings bare-edged and raw, all shadows and gold. Ivy clung to the faded bricks of the coffee shop. Across the lake, the library's three spires loomed through the morning mist.

They made their way up the steps and into the shop. Past the doors, a warm, bitter scent enveloped them. As soon as they stepped inside, Kairi seemed to teleport into the line before a broad-shouldered boy with a shock of red hair. "Three regulars, a frozen cappucino and a hot chocolate, right?' she called to them.

Sora made his way through the crowd towards her. "I thought it was just the three of us."

Kairi blinked at him. "Oh, am I ordering for you, too?" But she grinned and nodded to show that she understood before waving him off. "Go find us a table!"

"Don't ask," Riku said as he led Sora to the window. "She's gotten kind of addicted to the coffee here in the past week." Sprawling into the seat closest to the glass, he leaned an elbow on the sill. "I'd stage an intervention, but she'd probably crack me over the head with a coconut. Then she'd use the milk for her coffee."

"Are there coconuts here?" Sora asked. He took the outermost chair, leaving a third seat for Kairi. A glance back showed that she had already fought halfway to the head of the line and was surveying the menu with a worrying twist to her mouth.

_Good thing it's her treat_, Roxas said. _Those spiders this morning ate half your wardrobe. If we factored in her idea of breakfast, you'd be broke by lunch._

Even as he grinned, Sora furrowed his brow. It was Roxas, but it didn't – sound like Roxas. In fact, it hadn't sounded like him for a while – ever since Sora had woken up that morning. The voice was right, as was the casual set of the tone, but there was something about the way he spoke – insouciant, deliberate – that sounded as if he were trying to mimic someone… _What are you talking about?_

Confusion twirled up into his mind and curled through his thoughts. This time, he recognized the sensation. _Roxas_, he thought. _What's happening?_

_I don't know._

"It's Kairi," Riku said, startling Sora out of his trance. "She'd find one." They sat in silence for several moments before he added, "So. What do you think?"

"Of what?"

Riku gestured, but there was something odd about the way he made the movement. "You know. Ansem." It took Sora a second to figure it out. Then it slotted into place and he saw it. It was as if Riku were performing, he thought – Roxas's voice an undercurrent below the words, driving his thoughts along – as if he were trying to be formal about everything. He was asking the kinds of questions that someone would ask a guest, an acquaintance—

_A stranger_, Roxas said, and Sora couldn't read his tone.

"Riku?"

Some unreadable thought flickered through Riku's eyes. He started to speak, but before he could form the first word, a steaming cup dropped before him, followed by another before Sora. With a deep breath, Kairi sank into the seat between them.

"Hi, guys," she said, still cradling a tray of four cups. "Look, Coffee Claus came by! Hurry and drink before they get cold."

Long before Sora could put a name to it, the last of the expression vanished from Riku's face. He turned to Kairi instead, all raised brows and half-grins, as if that split-second of doubt had never existed. "You do realize that if you keep drinking that stuff, eventually you'll just be bone and caffeine."

"You mean I'll be like you?" Kairi asked, rolling a cup between her palms. "Now that's scary."

Riku folded his arms. "What's scary, the part where I don't have to live with a roommate? Or how I'm _not_ taking five courses a trimester until my early death? Or—"

"Keep gloating, mister." Raising another cup from the cardboard tray, she wiggled it at him. "I have a spare coffee and I'm not afraid to use it."

"Yeah, right. I've seen you. It's all you can do to stop yourself from licking the bottom of the cup."

"I do not," Kairi said, dignified, lifting her chin. "Anyway, I had to live for eighteen years without a drop of coffee. So, even if I _did_, it's not like I'm anywhere near the average yet."

Sora leaned into his seat, sipping at his hot chocolate. The taste of it, rich and sweet and scorching, swelled on his tongue. He sighed. Then the import of Kairi's words struck him, and he groaned, recalling the tradition begun in seventh-grade days when math had suddenly and viciously turned on their brains. "Aw, come on, guys. We were so close to getting through just _one_ morning without talking about math."

"Serves you right for hanging out with a Psych major and a Math major," Riku said lightly.

They both stared at him. Kairi set her coffee onto the table. "Wait. So you're really majoring in math?"

"I already told you that."

"I thought you were kidding. Riku, you _hate_ math."

For an instant, the same expression swooped through Riku's eyes. His knees bent; Sora let his chair legs drop to the ground, aware only of the paradox of bare and sharp in his best friend's glance. But nothing gave way. Riku only tipped his chair against the glass. Backlit by the steady sunrise, his eyes glittered dark and secret.

"Like I'm going to let _that_ stop me," he said.

* * *

The memory still clung to Sora five hours later as he reeled out of his Advanced German Literature lecture. His professor had been a sallow, sharp-faced woman – bony of frame and narrow of eye, with coarse dark hair and a pursed mouth – whom everyone called 'Frau M.', though she never made an official introduction. She seemed to have a sixth sense for the students who hadn't done the homework, and called on them as often as possible; her syllabus was a blatant, filthy lie that claimed she should have been just starting on Goethe when it was clear that they were already three-quarters of the way through _Faust_; and, for no apparent reason, she kept giving Sora the evil eye throughout the lecture. By the end of class, other people were starting to come up to him with sympathetic mumbles and advice on where to buy the cheapest talismans.

To top it all off, they'd been assigned readings from the second part of _Faust_, with the warning that she would call on students at random to translate selected portions of the text before the entire room. Sora had aced high school German – if only because his mother, who spoke German fluently, had been able to pick up the slack of teaching him while he was ill – but he wasn't sure that he was _that_ good. He wasn't sure that _Goethe_ would have been able to translate up to Frau M.'s exacting standards.

Kairi looked up as he stumbled into the room marked down for his History 250 class. Alarm flared through her voice, and she stood, moving towards him at an urgent speed. "Sora? Are you okay, Sora?" She reached him and caught hold of one arm, peering into his face. "You don't look so great."

He mustered up a smile. "I'm fine. Just German class. Did you hear anything about Professor… uh. Frau M.?"

"No, but Riku probably did. He's been taking classes in everything... " Letting him go, she started to walk back to her seat, beckoning for him to follow. "Sora, did he say anything to you about declaring his major already?"

"Huh? No, nothing. I haven't heard from you guys since…" Sora trailed off, feeling the unbridged space with all the words they left unsaid. It had been a long set of months, lying in that bed dreaming of a desert full of doors. Best to forget that it had ever happened. He was better now, after all, and his friends were here. That was all he really needed, wasn't it?

Sliding into her desk, Kairi propped her chin on her hands. "He's been acting kind of strange lately. Ever since…" The wrinkle between her brows deepened. "Hmm."

"What? What is it, Kairi?"

She shook her head, tucking a stray strand behind her ear. "Oh, it's nothing. It's just that—"

Whatever she was about to say was interrupted by a sudden slam of the door. "A_ha_!" crowed the professor, striding to the front. Halting at the board, he dropped his briefcase onto the table and delivered a round glare around the room. "Teaching," he muttered, surveying the students in the furthest row with a worrying gleam to his eye. "Oh, boy. Why is it always me?" One eye, weaving a clear count through the rows of students, stopped over Sora. "Wak?" He glowered. "Who are _you_?"

_Tell him you're Riku._ Roxas supplied from the depths of boredom and horror intermingling._ Sophomore. Dyed your hair and took growth-stunting pills over summer vacation. Then drop this class and don't come back._

"I'm, um, Sora. I signed up for your class—"

"—a week late!" Up close, Professor Donald didn't look so intimidating: a short man with thick brows, dark-eyed and wide-mouthed, his downy hair already peppered with white. He was skinny at best: Sora knew some wet t-shirts that could have given him a run for his money.

Put the fact that fifty-five students were currently cowering behind Sora down to his constant rage, then.

"I thought I told the counselors _not_ to sign anybody else up for my class," he said darkly. When Sora didn't respond, he hopped up and down. "Stand up! And answer me when I'm talking to you!"

Clapping a hand to his nape, Sora scrambled to his feet. "It was the only one left," he explained. Kairi, he knew, would have retorted by now. He could feel her at his side, shaking with rage at the unfairness of being chewed out before a class full of students who would have done no better. In ordinary circumstances, he would have been a little annoyed by now, too. But this was different. There was no malice in the professor's words as there had been when Frau M. had looked at him, no genuine anger behind the scowl. "History 250 fills one of the requisites, right?"

"That's right!" a more jovial voice announced before Professor Donald could say something scathing. "I bet that's why everybody's in here." A taller man dashed into the room, knitted cap bouncing on his head with every step. He beamed at the gathering before adding, in what only an elephant could mistake for a hushed voice, "Gawrsh, sorry, Donald. I didn't mean t'interrupt."

"Hey, Goofy!" one daring student called.

Goofy turned, hair flapping loose around his shoulders, and tipped his hat. "Nice to see y'all again!" he said before Donald hauled him into the corner for a brief, fierce consultation.

"I have told you again and again," he hissed, voice clear despite his best efforts. "You cannot let the students give you _nicknames_."

Goofy scratched his head. "So, is it okay if I give them a nickname to call me?"

Professor Donald glowered. "That's not what I meant!"

"It isn't?" His assistant looked saddened. Then, he straightened, features brightening as an epiphany struck him. "Wait! I got it!" He chortled. "You mean I should make 'Goofy' my real name, don'tcha!"

"Awwr…" The professor gnawed on his pointer, muttering baleful medieval curses under his breath. Returning to his students, he fixed a fierce look on a spot somewhere along the farthest wall and said, "For those of you who have not been paying attention, _or who signed up a week late_—" darting a brief, pointed frown at Sora "—this is History 250: Introduction to Medieval Europe. If you think you may be in the wrong class, leave now."

He left a hopeful pause dangling. When it hooked no students, Professor Donald scowled and went on. "Okay! Here's the last reminder. There are three things that I will not tolerate: disrespect, stupidity and being late. If you can't turn in an assignment on time, _drop out_." He halted again. When this, too, failed to drive students from his classroom, his shoulders slackened and he faced the board, where a slideshow was already fading into view. "We'll start with some slides on diseases in the early medieval period…"

* * *

By the time Sora arrived in Elementary Data Analysis, he was seriously beginning to consider the idea of dropping one of his classes. It wasn't like he needed to take a full course-load every trimester to graduate in three years. If he looked up from his notes one more time to find Professor Donald staring fixedly at him, he'd have to take drastic measures. Like wearing blinkers or something.

Hey, it worked for horses, right?

Unlike his first two classrooms, which had been standard fare, Statistics 201 was taught in a computer lab. It was cooler here than it had been in either class before it, and more quiet, though the silence was punctured by the hum of fifty computers and the occasional clattering of students hammering away at their keyboards.

"Oh maaaaan." Another student flopped down beside Sora. He stretched, then sank bonelessly into his seat. Golden hair drooped over the back of his chair. His knapsack fell to the floor with a thud. "Is it just me," he said, "or does every professor on campus hate having students?"

"Well…" Basic honesty forced Sora to stop before he could protest. Two out of two professors had been pretty clear on where they stood with regards to the issue of whether Sora should live or die. And that was just so far. "Maybe not _hate_," Sora said at last.

His companion waved this away with a callused hand. "If they're staring at you like they want to drill a hole through your skull and pick your brains, it's hate. So?"

Sora waited. When it came clear that the other boy wasn't going to say anything else, he asked, "So… what?"

"So, do you think every professor on campus hates having students?"

"Well, I—"

"Because if we can even make a case for it, we could start to build… behavioral… thingys… Aw, forget it." Picking a notebook from his backpack, he slapped it onto the desk and flipped it open. His fingers flew through the pages, stopping midway through. "The final project in this class is to 'convert a daily phenomenon into statistical data'." He made air-quotes. "So I figure that we might as well convert something _useful_, right? And then we'll have solid proof and stuff." Ceasing mid-gesture, he turned the movement into something else by sticking out his hand. "Edym."

Still adrift somewhere between 'final project' and 'data', Sora said, "Huh?"

"That's my name. Edym. I thought I should make some friends, since having nobody to borrow notes from is probably what sank me last time."

"Oh! I'm Sora." He accepted Edym's hand with a grin. "I'm not exactly great at math either, though…"

A beat passed. Edym did not speak, but his grip tightened. His skin seemed oddly cool, a sharp contradiction to the intensity of his gaze. Sora could hear his blood pulse in the silence. It felt a little like waiting for something, though he couldn't imagine what they could be waiting for.

All at once, Edym relaxed again. "Hey, it's no big deal," He sat back in his chair as the remaining students started to filter in. "Just means that we'll both have to go to outside sources for help. Double the help means double the grade! Which means that there's no way I can't ace it. So now that we've got that covered… do you play any instruments, Sora?"

"Ah – um… No?"

"Oh." Edym looked down. Awkwardness looped about Sora's throat at his disappointment. That he had no musical skills to speak of wasn't for lack of trying – he'd just never really gotten the hang of playing instruments. He just didn't like letting people down, and Edym seemed really nice.

But regret didn't seem to faze Edym for long. He faced the board as the professor strode into the room, passing Sora only the briefest of thumbs-up before picking up his pencil, all solemnity and apparent diligence – at least until he yawned.

The professor's cool stare rested on him for a long moment before he cast it elsewhere. "The usual instructor for this course has taken ill," he said as soon as he set his papers down, toneless. His dark hair gleamed as it fell forward to mask half his countenance. He didn't bother to push it out of the way. Oddly, the gesture only served to emphasize the delicate lines in his features, the unfinished set to his jaw; in the light, he looked younger than ever. "I will serve as his replacement for this trimester. I am—" At this unexpected hurdle, he paused. A pained look flashed across his face before he continued: "Professor Zexion."

* * *

As it turned out, Elementary Data Analysis wasn't the nightmare that Sora'd thought it would be. Roxas might have vanished for a year, but he still remembered the basics, and from there could make the leap to the rest of what they were taught. Edym eventually gave up on his own notes and just peered over at Sora's whenever he needed the clarification – which was often. Sora emerged from the class an hour and a half later, feeling confident for the first time all afternoon – just in time for the school day to end.

Best of all, Riku and Kairi's classes should have ended hours ago. They'd agreed to meet by the ring of trees in the courtyard by Sora's dorm for dinner, which meant that he didn't have to think about disturbing things like math and the most efficient way of translating a man's woes after selling his soul for hours yet.

The thought was decidedly cheering. Tucking his notebooks and pencils away, Sora started to whistle as he strolled out of the classroom and into the afternoon sunshine.

It took him five minutes before he noticed the ragged shadow's edge keeping pace with his own.

On instinct, Sora whirled. Tension sharpened the set of his shoulders. He tried to stifle it as he said, "Are you lost?"

His unwanted escort only folded his arms, tapped a foot against the sidewalk, and smirked. "Roxas," he drawled, starting to pace a circle around Sora. "I've been waiting for you."

Sora didn't draw back, but he could feel the desire screaming in every muscle, long instinct working to the bone. As the stranger passed, his mind filtered the looming shoulders, the brilliant red hair, and the black tear underneath each eye before it caught up with his words.

_Roxas?_

The rest of the world drained to a hollow as Sora watched the other man, wariness flaring up. How had someone else known about Roxas?

_I don't recognize him_, Roxas said, but he sounded thoughtful rather than panicked. The splashes that his emotions usually left across Sora's mental landscape were nowhere to be found. Instead, there was only a handful of some emotion like idle curiosity. _Ask him who he is_.

"Do I—does Roxas know you?"

The stranger started; Sora saw the words jerk through his narrow body like a bolt. He began several answers, discarding each as they came. The question seemed to have rendered him speechless. At last, he twirled a finger in resignation. "Amnesia." He chuckled, though there was no kindness in the noise. "What a cliché. Hope some part of you appreciates the irony."

"You didn't answer my question."

"We haven't got time for that." Circle complete, he stopped before Sora. "You've got to get out of town. Now."

"Wh-what? What are you talking about?"

"Now there's a fun question. I'm talking about the Barriers, the calculations, everything we discussed before—Before." Sora didn't miss the skittering pause, but the stranger swept on before he could ask him about it. He stepped closer, but Sora didn't move. They faced each other, toe to toe, their faces one hard breath apart. "Roxas might think that he doesn't remember," he said, "but he does. When he wants you to know, he'll tell you. For now, you have to listen to me. Leave town. Go stay with an aunt or something. Just get as far away from here as you can."

"_You do know that it'd be faster to explain everything than to keep saying we've got to leave, right?_" Roxas said through Sora's mouth. The change in their voice was different, palpable. Sora could hear the way the notes sank, the keen vibration of syllables he hadn't chosen. He dug his fingertips into his pulse, feeling the someone else's speech fading from his throat. The reminder that he was far from alone bolstered him, and he straightened.

The stranger twisted his mouth, staving off the beginnings of a grin. "All right," he said. "I'm talking about the end of the world. Clear enough for you?" He tapped his temple. "Got it—"

"The end of the—I'm supposed to believe that?" Sora demanded.

He tilted his head in a sardonic look at the sky; his red hair shifted in a stray breeze as he pulled away again. "Look," he said. "I haven't really got the time for you to decide whether to trust me. You're gonna leave this place today, one way or another."

"How are you going to do that?" Sora laced his hands behind his head, meeting the stranger's gaze with rising confidence. "Seems like you can't even touch me."

A rough hush stretched out between them. The other man broke the silence first. "Guess we're at a stalemate," he said at last. "So, tell me. How'm I going to convince you?"

There was no reply from Roxas, though Sora could still feel him, stark and alive in every vein. Sora said, "Show me."

"What?" The stranger actually backed up a few steps at that. His brows lifted and a twitch ran through his fingers. "You're kidding, right?"

"No. You said the world's ending. Show me proof."

He couldn't, of course. Sora didn't know how he'd found out about Roxas, but Roxas hadn't recognized him, which was proof enough that he couldn't be telling the truth. He'd never met Roxas; Sora wouldn't have to leave town; the end of the world wasn't about to dawn.

He was lying. He had to be.

The stranger's hands clenched at his sides. "You want me to _show you_?" He exhaled between his teeth – a coarse, ragged breath. Abruptly, his fists relaxed. He tilted his head, considering Sora from a new angle. "Fine. Why not?"

Unhurried and certain, he peeled off his gloves – first one, then the other. His skin shone, pale against the black of the leather, and his nails gleamed like claws as he reached out. An acute bitterness coiled in Sora's throat. Behind his eyelids in each blink, he could see the desert stretching vast and full of monsters. _You are chased no longer_, some other sense whispered, as though from a great distance. _Yours have been claimed; yours have been caught. Wait, and your answer will come._

But the words evaporated as the stranger seized his arms; each fingertip burned like a brand set against his skin.

The corner of his mouth came up, savagely purpose. "What's so bad about destroying the world, right?" His eyes were narrow, brilliant with sparks, and his bare hands felt strange as they slid up to Sora's shoulders – unnatural, as if a new sense was weaving itself into existence in the points where they touched.

"_Roxas_," he hissed. Underneath their feet, the world had started to tremble.

-

_to be continued_

* * *

reviews: spur... me... to write faster? Not really - I have a limited number of fingers, and there's only so much that surgically-attached tentacles can do - but I do love to hear what people think. Just to be sure that the hits on my page aren't from, you know, spambots.


	3. save a duck, stop an apocalypse

**Title:** Cities in Reverse (Part 3 of ??)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Do not own Kingdom Hearts, etc.  
**Summary:** AU. Facing university with a voice in his head, a lost year, and his best friends growing apart, the last thing Sora needs is to add 'save the world' to his to-do list. Sadly, the apocalypse waits for no man. Or term paper.

* * *

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chapter two: save a duck, stop an apocalypse

Roxas blinked.

The earth was shuddering, the horizon a wild shining ribbon, sharp light descending like a tempest of days. Axel's grip tightened until he could feel the press of muscle and straining bones.

Roxas pushed at him. His hands struck Axel's chest with a strange resonance; the echo burst against his palms. He would have reeled in surprise, but Axel was still holding onto him, ignoring the static building between their skins. In the depths of a shared mind, he felt Sora fight his way to the shore, stand on the edge and struggle to stay whole. _What's going on? _he demanded. His presence flooded the familiar channels of mind and nerves, winding control into his recalcitrant body. By instinct, Roxas started to slip back into his own place in Sora's mind - only to find that he couldn't. Something was holding him in place, locking him into every fiber and nail and callus of a body that was not his to wear. Even as he flung out a thought to search, his sense of Sora was diminishing until he couldn't feel him at all.

This time when he shoved Axel, the other man stepped away.

"Roxas," he was saying. "Get it through your head - you can't be here. I covered for this mission, and the shift'll definitely put them off, but they're gonna figure it out when you don't come back. And they'll be after you. All of them. They--"

"Shut _up_," he spat. His fists knuckled white -- but he couldn't touch Axel. The quake had started the instant he'd felt the strange charge shimmering into being between Axel and Sora - the same moment when Roxas had been yanked into consciousness and Sora had tumbled through the cracks in their existence. He couldn't risk it happening again. "What's going on, Axel? What did you do?"

His hands fell to his sides. Backlit by the sunset, his body flickered, split between shadows and light that slid across his skin like blood. "You really don't remember?"Remember _what_? I told you. I don't know what's going on!"

"Really." A half-smile flirted with the corner of his lips. He'd relaxed, Roxas thought. Tension had jutted from him like spines when he'd been talking to Sora. Now, though, it had disappeared. "So what did you call me?"

"I didn't--" He stopped. He knew the sensation of breath, teeth clicking together, lips curving into the name, but he didn't recognize it. "You're... named after a part of a wheel?" Roxas shook his head, filing the thought away for later. "Forget it. What was that, just now?"

Axel waved it off. "I'll tell you. But, first, we've got to get someplace safe. Come on." He reached out. His fingers tangled in Roxas' with a familiarity that disturbed him for only a second before they were off.

They ran.

Roxas hadn't run in a while, and feeling the rush through Sora's filter was very different from actually pounding down the sidewalk. He was still trying to process all the body's accoutrements, wondering how Sora could handle aching and breathing and thinking all at once. Sora's instincts had pinned everything into place; with Roxas, the body had the basic defense of not doing anything, leaving Roxas to juggle a thousand inane processes simply to stay alive. Trying to keep pace his breaths with running was strange and weird and just a little bit complicated.

He didn't realise that the thought was slowing him to a crawl until Axel shot him a look over one shoulder. "What's the matter," he tossed off, shouting to be heard over the roar and rustle of the shaking. "Can't keep up?"

Suddenly Roxas had no problems breathing at all.

They emerged from the dorm courtyard and headed down the main street. Sunset had rusted the forlorn cars and emptied the sidewalks; if the apocalypse happened now, Roxas thought, it wouldn't change much. The world would still be this: silence and light. He let the idea drift away as Axel stopped at a street corner. Leaning against the sign-post, Roxas curled a hand around its stem and held fast. As an afterthought, he jerked his other hand free. "Now will you tell me what's happening?"

"Man. You mean you still haven't figured it out?" Axel folded his arms, cocking a brow. "And here I thought you were supposed to be the prodigy."

"Answer the question."

"It was a shift," he said. The wry knot to his mouth had split into a wide, wide grin. His skin shone with sweat and sheer delight - all lies, Roxas thought, viciously, then couldn't think of why. "Hitting any memories yet?"

Before Roxas could reply, Axel had seized his hand again and they were off, running for - he didn't even know where. Running from the looming shadows that the buildings flung over them, running from the trees and the tumbling sun. The world was resonating harder than ever; the road was skewing into a gold loop. With every step he could feel the groundshock trill into his bones.

A block into the run, he nearly tripped over a misplaced duck. One flew at him, quacking wildly until they managed to outdistance it. Finally, three blocks later, he caught his hand on the edge of a brick building and held on. There was a sharp jolt as Axel tried to drag him, but they both stopped. "What's the plan," Roxas snapped once he'd caught his breath, "getting me to _jog _all the way out of town?"

"If you think you can make it." Casually, Axel tugged his gloves on, then looked at him with what Roxas felt was unnecessary amusement. "You okay over there? You look like you're dying."

_Yeah? Give me a few seconds and I could make sure that you were _actually _dead. _The remark hung, strangely spinning among the clutter in his mind, and Roxas thought of Sora. "I'm not leaving," he said, bracing his feet against the sidewalk. "I have -- My friends are here. I won't leave without them."

"So take 'em with you. Make a roadtrip of it."

Roxas shook his head. "I can't just..." His voice firmed. "I can't. And don't _touch_ me again."

"But Roxas," Axel drawled. "I thought you _liked_ it when I touched you."

Malice shone in his tone like a knife - but there was still another edge to the statement that Roxas didn't want to examine. Instead, he changed the subject. "Where's Sora? What did you do to him?"

"Me?" Axel pressed his fingertips to his heart. "Nothing. You did all the legwork. I just... gave it a little push. He's gone, Roxas."

Even the sun seemed to dim palpably. Roxas's throat worked with difficulty. He swallowed. If Axel was right... _Sora!_ He pored ruthlessly through the maze of their mind, fishing through every stray thought for some lingering sense of Sora. Nothing came - again and again and again, until his shoulders were bowed and tight with fury and despair.

A spark fluttered.

_R..._

It faded before he could grasp it - but he was sure anyway, sure of who it had been and what it proved. "He's still there. I can feel it." Roxas narrowed his eyes. "You're lying."

"Big claims for a guy who can't even remember how he spent the last year," Axel said. "Look. Roxas. Just hear me out."

"I thought you said that we wouldn't have time."

He flashed Roxas a quick grin. "Changed my mind. You gonna listen or not?"

In spite of himself, Roxas tensed. Something about that smile didn't seem right - like the kind of spectacle that dazzled its audience with glittering baubles while some magician with slippery fingers made off with their wallets. But he couldn't leave, couldn't get away. Axel - god, what a weird name, and he was well-aware of the hypocrisy to that statement - knew too much, and Roxas knew nowhere near enough. "I'm listening," he said.

"Good. Now, here's what you need to know: you're a Barrier--"

Roxas stared. "Tell me I misheard you. Tell you said... said 'bartender' and not 'synonym for wall'."

"Who're you kidding? Like anyone'd let you tend bar. You look about six. And this is not the time. You said you'd listen, so listen. There are thirteen of us -- including you, Roxas. We've picked up a lot of names over the centuries, but the one that's really stuck is the Organization. When any of us touch, it causes a world-shift. Weird stuff happens. All those UFO sightings in the 90s? Probably a combination of world-shifts and the X-Files."

"So..." Roxas said, trying valiantly to think a sentence that didn't contain the words 'crazy' and 'run for your life'. "As long as I don't let any of them touch me, it'll be okay."

"It's not just about getting their hands on you, although..." His expression quirked into a half-grin before he continued. "You're their ticket out of this place -- if they find you, they can do a lot worse than start a shift. If you're staying, then you're gonna need Sora's help. He won't be affected by the shifts, and I'm pretty sure he can use that." When Roxas didn't speak, he added, "He's still there, right? Tucked inside your head? You should be able to find him if you look."

"What's Sora got to do with this?"

Axel ignored him. "You're gonna need protection. Stick to corners. Doorframes work best, though that's like saying that a paper umbrella's better than nothing in a thunderstorm. Use 'em if you don't want them to hear you plan. I don't know what else they've got on you, so best to be careful." He stripped off a glove and held it out. "I'd get you an outfit, but then you'd be a big bullseye in leather. Just wear this - it should keep most of the surges steady until you find a permanent fix."

"Hold on. All of you wear the same thing?" Roxas looked him up and down. He'd assumed that Axel was wearing very baggy slacks, a fashion statement enjoyed by thousands of people who'd never had best friends pull their pants down for the amusement value - or, technically, been in the body of someone who was exactly that kind of best friend. (In Sora's defense, Riku had been an easy target, and one who needed to be taught that wearing clothes three sizes too big to stave off more shopping was stupid.)

He'd been wrong. It was leather. It was black. It looked like the stepchild of a trenchcoat and a disfigured bathrobe. Light might have traced the swoop of an ornate, ancient sigil across the material, but Roxas couldn't spare the brain space to follow it. He was too busy goggling at the overall effect, which - if examined too closely - resembled a burnt tree. "Am I being hunted by a noir club gone horribly wrong?"

"Can't say it's much of an outfit, but it keeps us from shifting the world by accident, so at least it's good for something." As Roxas reluctantly accepted the glove, Axel glanced up. "Last shift's stopped," he remarked. "Didn't last long; its effects probably won't survive the laws if you give 'em the right boost. Go. You've got... _friends_ to check on. And Sora - you have to save him too, right?"

"Yeah. But, you-- Why are you helping me?"

"Narcissist." Axel's mouth crooked. "Who said it was about you?" Tucking his hands into his pockets, he started towards the alley.

Roxas grabbed his arm as he passed. "Wait!" He _felt_ the muscle go rigid under his fingers, the fleeting shock that shot through every vein before Axel regained control and relaxed. "Then why were we running?"

With his gloved hand, Axel tossed him a lazy salute. "Just wanted to hold your hand. Thought it might bring back a couple of memories." Slipping from Roxas' grip, he stepped around the corner. When Roxas followed, the narrow alley held no one.

He pressed a hand to the brick wall and tried to think. Apocalypse. Barriers. And Axel hadn't even told him half the things he needed to know - most specifically, what was going on. But it was too late to fix that now. He'd have to find a way to deal with it himself. And it was best to start at the beginning with these situations. Roxas closed his eyes.

And fell.

* * *

Descartes said, _I think, therefore I am. _And that was true, but he'd underestimated so much. _What_ was he, stranded in that void where nothing existed but the echo of his own thoughts? How could he be sure that any of it was real? Sora flung things at the emptiness like a challenge. Faces, sensations, memories - an endless procession of objects to prove that he existed, this island boy with sand still clinging to his toes, loving and loved. Here was Riku; here was Kairi; here was the sensation of gritty fingers sinking into his first sandcastle--

A lid slammed shut. The memory untangled from his skin and vanished. When he tried to conjure up Riku and Kairi's faces, he found only a bare space swept clean. After all, how could he be sure that they'd ever existed? They might have been only an extended hallucination, thought rebounding against idealized thought to generate friends that smiled and raced and were real. Nothing in the outside world could be proven.

But that meant there was still himself! He existed: ears, teeth, knees and elbows and hair like a very small bush. And there was more to that, life ingrained in his very fingerprints - keychains and doodling competitions on windowfrost in winter, big sneakers from a brand that had been discontinued shortly after he'd gotten his acceptance letter to Ansem. And--

And...

And his name: Sora. He held onto it with disintegrating fingers as memories were stripped down and decayed into uncertainty. _My name is Sora. I exist._ A last, far-flung thought from an SAT study test: Descartes. Philosophy. Thought. _I think, therefore I am_.

_But what remains of you..?_

_I--_

_Sora!_

A blast of darkness overwhelmed him, cool and familiar. Friends and scents and movements spilled through his mind in a scatter. _Kairi! Riku!_ He called up their faces, feeling an impossible gratitude as one face greeted him, then another. Red hair, head thrown back, vivid flash of a smile -- _Kairi_. Arms crossed, sea-strange eyes, half-grin tilted down like a promise. _Riku._

Then, inevitably_, Roxas?_

_Go look for Riku and Kairi_.

_Huh?_ Instinctively, Sora glanced upward: the skies were smoke and bruises, the sun had already diminished into a hard, luminous slice._ What happened?_

_I'll fill you in on the way. Run._

* * *

Nobody was waiting for him in the courtyard, although a few cats were hanging out forlornly by a scatter of abandoned skateboards. They'd promised to find him in his dorm if he hadn't arrived by six, and it had to be well past that now. If they weren't there... In spite of himself, dread wormed through his veins. Gritting his teeth, Sora raced up the stairs. If something had happened to Riku or Kairi-- but his mind couldn't think past that possibility. They had to be okay. They'd promised each other that they would be.

At his door, he fumbled with the key. He thought that he could hear an outraged squawk as he shoved it into the lock and twisted it open.

The first thing he saw was an indignant duck descending upon him.

There was a brief tussle. Sora flung his arms up, backing into the hallway as the bird flapped and honked in indignation. Abruptly, with a last noise like a strangling trumpet, it pulled away and fluttered onto the ground, just in time for another two to pounce on him, claws and webbed feet outstretched. "Ow!" The cat seemed to be trying to scratch its way up Sora's shirt, something that looked a bit hard. It kept getting its claws stuck in things like cloth and, say, Sora's flesh. As Sora sank to the ground, trying to pull the cat off, the second duck waddled up and beaked the cat, hard. At last, the cat allowed itself to be pulled off, hissing quietly all the while.

As he started to set the cat down, something caught his attention -- blue. The cat's eyes were an impossible blue. Not stark Persian blue, but the blue of seas caught at the tail-end of a tempest - still mad and shifting, but familiar in a way that no cat's eyes should have been...  
_  
Weird stuff happens_. Even now, he could hear Axel - a ghost from Roxas' memory. He wondered if this was what Axel had meant. Sora took a deep breath. "Riku?" he said. The cat yowled. He even looked like Riku, now that Sora looked at him properly: his coat was a long-haired, brilliant silver, and he had Riku's sulky way of hunching his shoulders and flattening his brows. Riku had never had a tail, though, but Sora thought that it kind of suited him, especially when it lashed like that.

Kairi nudged him. She wasn't a duck so much as a duckling: slender of frame, body darkened into gray-red fluff, cheeks still downy with yellow with another red stroke above her eye. Sora beamed down at her as the first tsunami of relief struck him and carried him along. They were safe. Both of them were safe. At the back of his mind he could still feel the weirdness of it all like a net pulling tight, but he didn't have to worry about it right now. He could figure out a way to get them back to human form somehow - there had to be a way to reverse this - but no matter what, they were here and alive and unharmed.

Without warning, he swept them both into a tremendous hug. "I was so worried," he murmured, burying his face into the startling warmth of fur and feathers. "So worried..."

A honk interrupted them. The first duck had waddled into the door frame. It craned its neck back at Sora. When he lifted his head, it greeted him with another honk and a dark look.

"What?" Letting Kairi and Riku drop back to the ground, Sora pointed a finger at himself. "Me?"

The duck quacked.

"You... want me to follow?"

Another quack, followed by something that looked suspiciously like an eyeroll. The duck marched into the room. Sora looked down at his two best friends, rubbing his neck. "Well, I guess you can all understand me, huh?"

A chorus of purrs and _gwak_s followed him into the room. He looked around to find that the first duck had settled at the computer and was picking out letters, with some difficulty, at the keyboard. It quacked at him reprovingly when he tried to sit down on his own bed, so he went over to stand by the computer screen instead. After another instructional noise, he read:  
_  
whthfhyyyyyyythefcuckck??l;YOU4 HUM.,ANHOW_

"You're asking how I'm still human?" Sora translated after a few seconds of difficulty. The duck gave him a sour, expectant look. "I'm not--" he started. He tried again. "There was a..." Every response seemed too long, too complicated, too likely to drag someone else into a battle they shouldn't have to fight. What if they found out and decided that they wanted to fight? He - well, Roxas - was the one that the Organization wanted. He couldn't let anybody get involved, get hurt.  
_  
The Organization_. Axel had said that. He'd also said something else - something about Sora himself. Even as Riku settled gracefully onto the bed beside the desk and Kairi paced at his feet, Sora couldn't help the frown that tightened his brows as he tried to remember. What was it that Axel had told Roxas?  
_  
He said that this shift could be fixed if you gave it the right boost, _Roxas supplied, and Sora could feel the flayed grimness to every word._ Somehow_.

Tentatively, he reached out, pressing a hand to Riku's flank. Memory rushed through him: Riku stretched out in the sand, alight with joy; opening his cupped hands to reveal his first - and only - pet spider; laughing as he dashed ahead of Sora; hunched over, gripping a fishing pole with white-knuckled determination; getting knocked into the lake because he'd been concentrating too hard; plunged into a sulk when Kairi and Sora both outfished him; at graduation, holding his trophy with steady pride. And it was starting to feel familiar now -- this was how it had felt when he'd first risen from the void and into the same old network of veins and flesh and bones. He remembered what to do next.

"Riku," he said.

It happened without happening. In one moment, Sora was touching the flank of a cat gazing back at him with sleepy jeweled eyes. In the next, Riku was sitting on the edge of the mattress and Sora had his hand on his thigh.

They sat without speaking for a moment. Then Riku jerked back. Sora promptly knocked him over. He'd known what Roxas had said, what Axel had said, but he still hadn't really expected it to work. It didn't make any _sense_ for it to work - although not, he supposed, any less than intelligent ducks who communicated via keyboard - and so he hadn't dared. Yet here Riku was, ribs and elbows in the right places and glowering in a very red-faced, human way. "Get off of me, Sora--"

Sora grinned into his shirt. "You always said you could pin me in five seconds in a wrestling match!"

"Yeah, well, this is a bed, there isn't enough space! Get _off_."

He sprawled onto the floor, still shaking with laughter. Eyeing him with reluctant, cattish amusement, Riku stepped over him and knelt beside Kairi. Placing a hand on her head, he said, "What'd you do? Remember things about them and say their name?"

"Yeah, I-- hey!" Sora sat up in surprise. "How'd you know?"

"I could feel them." Riku turned away, lowering his head. Even so, his voice came out roughened, unsteady. "Idiot."

Kairi bloomed out into the silence while they waited, a split-second transformation, and it was Kairi, too, unchanged for her brief time in feathers. Reaching up, she clasped Riku's fingers between two palms. "Thanks," she said, smiling simply and openly, before training her attention on Sora. "You--"

She didn't make it through another word. An earsplitting _gwak_ sliced through the air as the duck flew at Sora and tried to bite his nose. Its wings flared over his head; its shadow rushed, beating like a heart across the floor. Trying to bat it off, he yelled over the outraged stream of duckish invective: "Who is it?"

"He's your roommate, Sora," Kairi said. He could barely see her face between wingbeats as she tried to pry the maddened bird away.

At this recognition, the duck settled again. He nudged a stray feather back into place and ruffled his wings. "_Wak_," he said ominously.

"Ah, well, uhh." Sora scratched his head, feeling awkwardness slide into his bones. "I didn't get the chance to meet him before..."

"Before what, Sora?" Riku prompted. He'd crossed his arms and was leaning against a bedpost, cheeks still lightly flushed.

"Well, I remember his name, at least. Guess that'll have to be enough." Kairi touched a fingertip to the duck's beak. He glared at it as if he were contemplating biting it off. "I think he said it was... Seifer?"

Instantly, the shape under her hand burst into a tangle of feathers and long, long, longer limbs spilling onto the ground in an ungracious heap.

"What took you so long?" Glaring, Seifer spat out a bit of yellow fluff. He still had a half-grown drake's angular stance, but the return to human form - and losing a beak - made him look much less dangerous. "How 'bout the next time something like this happens, you do a little less talking and a little more _turning people back_, huh?"

His roommate had an interesting profile, even while snarling: thick jaw and a sharp-pressed mouth, yellow hair razed to the scalp like a solder's. A long scar slashed over his nose. And, Sora realised as Seifer stood, he was much taller than he'd looked at first, huddled and grumbling under those blankets. He loomed over all of them - even Riku - with broad shoulders and a baleful look that should have taken care of anyone unlucky enough to be taller by reducing them to ash.

"Holy sh--" Seifer scowled, struck by revelation. "I was a _duck_! Geez, what the _hell_ is wrong with this university?"

Kairi wheeled, striding over to the window. "And we're not even finished yet."

"What do you mean?" Riku paced over, too, and Sora followed. "Sora's here, you're here, I'm here..."

"Are you really going to leave people trapped as animals, Riku?" She jabbed a thumb at the courtyard, where the cats that Sora had seen earlier were now gloomily attempting to skateboard without knocking themselves out. "We have to go help them. Come on, you took all those classes. You'll know lots of people."

"I don't know. I kind of like the thought of leaving the professors like that. At least until after midterms." He folded his arms at her expression. "I'm kidding."

"Kairi's right." Sora nodded. "We have to help them." After all, it was his fault that they'd been transformed in the first place. The least he could do was to bring them back to the way they'd been. Nervously, he fiddled with his single glove. It looked so small, so faded, the curve of it ragged against his wrist. How much could it really stop?

"I know." Riku was the first to move towards the door. He paused in the frame. "But you know that we're never going to get any dinner now, right?"

Kairi shoved him playfully. He pretended to stagger, reeling, into the hall. Laughing, Sora started after them, only to remember... "Seifer? You coming?" His roommate was standing at the window. As he turned, Sora saw him trace the familiar scarred groove over his nose before letting his hand drop.

"I just got here," he said, still watching the glass from the corner of his eye. "There's only two people I know, and I'll find 'em when they want to be found. I can't save anybody else and I'm not gonna waste my time trying. Get the hell out of here." Grief strained against the words, clicking tight between his teeth. He cleared his throat, tore his eyes away from the sight of the fallen sun, and growled. "What're you waiting for, stamped invitations? Get out of my room, you chickensh--"

Sora went out, closing the door behind him. Kairi and Riku were waiting in the hall. "Thought you said he was a nice guy," Riku said dryly.

Kairi set her hands on her hips. "He was opening a door for me at six in the morning. That's more than you did. I had to crawl through your window."

"I left it open because I knew that's what you'd do. It's your contingency plan for everything. How's that not nice?"

She made a face, then turned down the corridor. "Let's go, Sora."

"Yeah." He fell into step beside them, trailing a hand along the wall. The fluorescent lighting rippled on the tiles like water as they walked. "Kairi?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Riku?"

"What?"

"I really--" He tried to form the words, tried to think of a more eloquent way to put them, but they came, all at once, in the giddy rush that he still hadn't outridden. "I missed you guys."

Kairi slipped her hand into his. Her face lit with a slow, vivid smile. "Yeah," she said. "We missed you too."

* * *

"There was a brief mesh with 149586 at six-fifteen today," said Zexion without preamble as Axel strolled back into base. He was still wearing his work clothes - a rumpled, tailored suit that only served to emphasize his shortcomings. Axel thought about advising Zexion to sue his tailor. Then again, his preoccupations were so far in the future that he probably didn't even remember what lawyers were. "The surge could only have been Thirteen. Your work, I suppose."

"Of course. Who else is on the mission?" Axel flipped a chair to face Zexion and sprawled into it. Tipping it back, he leaned an elbow on the table and waited.

If it had been any other matter, Zexion - having recognized the ploy for what it was - would have abandoned the subject just to teach Axel a lesson. On this matter, however, there was procedure to be followed. And Zexion couldn't go against that. Outwardly, he exhibited no change in demeanor, but Axel recognized the brief twitch under one eye before he could hide it. "Did you make any progress?"

Axel bared his teeth. "Dragged him out," he said easily. "He's probably disappeared back into Sora by now, but I got him curious. Keep trying, give it more time, and we're bound to get through. Sooner or later, he's gotta come back out."

"We cannot hang a scientific design on 'sooner or later'." Zexion had turned back to the computer. One white, long-fingered hand hovered above the board, splaying delicately over the keys. "Even you should have learned by now. You know the calculations as well as I do."

"Yeah, yeah." Axel flapped a glove at him before starting to pick at the seams. "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and set it on fire. I was at Vexen's presentation too, you know. You could let it go once in a while."

An icy silence descended. "Let it go," Zexion repeated. "Of course. How could I have missed so obvious a solution? Clearly the thing to do is to discard all our plans and stalk children at the university as you do. How _are_ you enjoying your underage stalking, by the way?"

"What's the matter, Zexion? Other projects not going well? Seems like your class didn't go off with quite the bang you predicted."

Another definite twitch - and within five minutes of the last one, too. Axel considered a scoring system, then discarded the idea. Zexion really was easy prey these days. Counting victories against him would have been like beating a baby with a rattle. "I am modifying the containment system," he said stiffly. "We should see some results within the next two weeks."

"Still with him?" Axel heaved an exaggerated sigh, shaking his head. "I told you. It's gotta be Roxas. You can't go straight through Sora. There's something wrong with how the kid's been wired."

"I see that the centuries of paranoia have finally taken their toll."

He spread his hands, a gesture that nearly knocked him out of his seat. "Just trying to give a little advice, that's all. We're together on this, right? Can't phone home unless we want to give up the assignment. And we wouldn't want to fail with the whole Organization watching."

"I promise you that we won't -- so long as you let me do my work." Zexion glanced behind him, an off-hand look, before he started to type. The clattering keys resonated in the small room, mixing with the rising notes of his voice. "I know how you hate actual effort."

"Well." Axel let the chair drop and rose to his feet in a single movement. "We'll see, won't we?"

-

_to be continued_

* * *

_  
_reviews: are shiny and make me tremendously happy.


	4. scary monsters and super creeps

**Title:** Cities in Reverse (Part 3 of ??)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Kingdom Hearts is not mine. Neither is that bit of poetry in the last section, much to my dismay. (Mary Oliver, if you're interested. Look it up!)  
**Summary:** AU. Facing university with a voice in his head, a lost year, and his best friends growing apart, the last thing Sora needs is to add 'save the world' to his to-do list. Sadly, the apocalypse waits for no man. Or term paper.

* * *

-

-

chapter three: scary monsters and super-creeps

In the morning, Sora discovered that he and Seifer were rooming next to a mild-mannered wolf who wore blitzball jerseys to work. All in all, it wasn't as surprising as it should have been.

* * *

It took them all night to track down all the people they knew and explain the situation. Lucky for them all, the power to turn things back didn't seem limited to Sora. Late into the evening, slouching back to his dorm under strict orders from Kairi, he still saw strangers funneling memories into their friends, saw human forms blooming from the shapes of dogs, ducks, deer. Some students had even propped ladders up against the trees to check the birds for human minds underneath the wild, bright stares. The courtyard when he reached it was empty; the cats were gone, the skateboards tucked away. Everything looked oddly bare and quiet, considering the fact that a few hours ago the entire campus had been a menagerie, but Sora was too tired to think about it. As soon as he opened the door into his room, his knees buckled; he wrenched the doorknob for support and caught himself.

This would have usually been Roxas's cue to say something - a reminder, a reproach, a warning. He almost waited for it as he closed the door, back sliding against steel.

Nothing. Roxas's presence drifted in fluid, curling threads throughout his thoughts and did not speak. _Guess you're already asleep, huh_, Sora thought at him, and grinned when he didn't stir. He remembered undressing in the dark, light slanting through the grimy window, and sliding into bed. After that, he slept.

* * *

The desert again. This time, though, he was no longer alone.

As he watched, a woman's hand reached out from behind the slack space of a rusted gate, fumbling for a knob. Her fingertips brushed hot black grating instead. They pulled back, scorched, and darted into the screening darkness. Sora turned away and started to walk. Before he could get too far, the gate wrenched open with a rusty roar. A woman stumbled through. She peered to the left, to the right, hand against her brow to shield her eyes from the sun. Catching sight of him, she waved. "Heyyyy!"

He spun around. She was looking at him, cupping her hands around her mouth as she shouted again: "Hey! Y--You!" And then she was running, running to catch up as Sora stood in the dunes and tried to think of where he'd seen her before. She stopped just short of crashing into him and bent, shoulders heaving, hands pressed against her knees. "Oh good," she said. "You're still here."

"Huh?" Up close, she seemed real enough: rounded, opaque skin, her wry tilting smile nothing more than human. "This is a dream," Sora said, uncertainly. "Right?"

Having regained her breath, the woman stood upright. "Kind of," she said, fiddling with her necklace. Her thumb curved along the edge of a ring before she let it drop. "I mean, I'm not too sure what I'm doing with this yet. It took me forever to find you." Casting about, she took in the unsteady dunes, the jutting gates and the pulsing sun that flayed the sky white. "Hmm. There must be a reason why it's this world. I didn't choose it." She cocked her head. "Did you?"

Sora was still trying to process the first scattered assumptions, wild impossibilities that she treated like fact. "Another... world?" Out of impulse, and because all the strange things seemed to belong to him lately, he asked, "Do you know Roxas, too?"

"Roxas?" She blinked, then shook her head, liquid eyes uncertain. "Who's that?"

"Never mind," he told her, with a smile. "I guess we'll just have to wait here until we wake up. What's your name?"

The only answer she offered was a startled look. "Wake up? You mean you've," she gestured around, "been here before?"

He laced his fingers behind his neck, gazing up into a stark endless sky. "Yeah. Once every few nights, I dream this place. Sometimes I'm running from something." Out of habit as much as self-preservatory instinct, Sora glanced over his shoulder; but no monster lurked in his shadow. This seemed more like the desert of the fever-dreams, though she had never been there. "I guess this isn't one of those times."

The woman was shaking her head again. "You're not supposed to be here at all. Not more than once." Her fingers curled against her collarbone as she lowered her gaze. "I wonder if I got it wrong..."

"What's wrong?" Sora said. His arms dropped and he held out a hand. "Maybe I can help."

Abruptly she changed; her expression smoothed into sweet, easy confidence. "It's complicated," she told him. Her fingers folded around his palm, grasped it as she watched him with quiet, earnest eyes. Sora thought, with an unexpected jolt, of Namine. No, not Namine. Something in her - maybe the curve of jaw into throat, maybe the glint in her eye or the steadiness with which she held onto him - reminded him of Kairi, but one he hoped never to see: a Kairi subdued by world and power. "I just came to make sure."

"What do you mean, 'came to make sure'? Make sure of what?"

She smiled, or tried to. The corners of her mouth quavered before she straightened. "I'm glad to have met you," she said, "Sora." She was still holding onto his hands, and it was only when he felt the strain that he realised that she was falling, sinking into the sand. His hands clenched, but she slipped through his grip. "Wait," he said wildly, clawing handfuls of sand out of the way, and it was only her head above the sand now, cheeks flushed and eyes dark, reflecting neither sky nor sand, only the shadows of a gate. "Wait, I--"

* * *

_  
"What the hell."_

Sora blinked. Slowly, slowly, he let go of the sheets. Morning light streamed through the window, bright and fierce, and for a moment he saw white. As it started to fade, he glimpsed something waving at the edge of his vision. "Seifer?" he mumbled, and the crashing stopped.

"Really, what the hell. I've been waiting an hour for you to wake up." Seifer's voice was deep and irritated, and just a little resonant. He sounded, Sora thought sleepily, like a knife being shoved through a pipe. Wanly, he rubbed at an eye while his roommate flailed vaguely with his head stuck inside the microwave.

Wait.

_What?_

"Geez!" He scrambled out of bed, stumbling towards the microwave on his wobbly legs. The dream vanished from his nerves, its weight replaced by the new task of trying to get his roommate out from a very small metal box. "How'd you--"

Something that sounded like a grating rattled dangerously as Seifer's shoulders twisted. "Are you going to stand there and ask questions all day or _help me get out_?"

"How'd you even get stuck in there?"

"I was trying to fix the damn thing!" Seifer howled. "Now shut up and pull, you ch--"

It turned out that Seifer's head got stuck through an unfortunate combination of head and wedged hands - it was kind of a miracle, Sora thought (though he didn't say it) that Seifer didn't poke an eye out while he was kicking up a fury. They eventually succeeded in prying one of his hands from the cramped space by way of shoving his head as far to the left as possible before yanking really, really hard. After that, Seifer managed to haul his own head out. A badly-placed elbow sent Sora sprawling to the floor. As Seifer dusted himself off, he treated his roommate to a look of deep contempt. "Hmph."

Which was when the door slammed open, cracking him over his much-abused head.

"We brung the soap, y'know?" a man gasped, slumping against the doorframe, broad shoulders heaving. Scratching his head, he peered down at Seifer, whose hair had been squashed flat and whose cheeks burned red. "You got out! Should've known the boss could'a done without us." Noticing Sora, he added, "Oh, hey, you must be Seifer's roommate!" He thumped himself in the chest, looking pleased. "I'm Rai, y'know! Seifer's--"

Behind him, a pale-haired girl glowered and kicked him in the shins. "IDIOT," she announced, with feeling, as Rai howled and hopped around the room, stamping muddy prints all over the tiled floor.

"Uh," Sora said, trying not to look too hard at Rai. "Is he going to be okay?"

The girl only fixed him with another glare. "FINE," she said eventually, though Sora suspected that what she wanted to say to him carried skulls and chains in its meaning.

"Leave him alone, Sora," Seifer said, rubbing his head and scowling. Turning to Sora, he jerked a thumb at the girl. "That's Fuu, and," he nodded at the broad-shouldered man, now sitting on Sora's bed to gingerly examine his shin, "that's Rai. Guys, this is Sora. He lives in my room. You'll be seeing him around a lot. Try not to break him."

"You got it, Seifer." Rai saluted him with a somewhat pained expression as he leapt to his feet. He added, "Hey, you got classes in a couple minutes, right?" but the way he said it - heavy-handed, with a wink that could have passed itself off as a facial seizure - told Sora that something else was up.

Seifer's blank look before he remembered whatever-it-was was pretty much a dead giveaway, too. Still - Sora thought of yesterday's looming shadow reflected from the glass, the sharp lines to his tense, scarred scowl. All of it had nearly disappeared from Seifer's features by now, watching Fuu with her arms folded and foot a-tapping and Rai rubbing his head and babbling. It was, Sora thought, probably the same way he himself looked at Riku and Kairi.

"You guys done here?" someone growled from the doorway. They all looked over to see a wolf slouching in the frame, plucking despondently at his jersey. "Just wondering if this is what I'm gonna have to go to sleep to every morning when I get back from work. Y'know. So I can get used to it, since I live just across the hall and all." He made a glum sort of face and slouched a little more in his clothes, and finally Sora remembered the scrubby-haired guy he'd met yesterday between classes, who called himself Terry and had proceeded to have an obsessively detailed discussion with Riku about blitzball teams.

Of course, he hadn't been _wolf-shaped_ yesterday.

"Terry?" he said. "Didn't anybody find you to bring you back?"

At this, Terry only looked more depressed. "Bring me back? To what? Wait. Don't tell me. The dorm had a slamming party and I missed it. Man, I knew there was a reason people were picking bikinis out of the trees while I was on my way."

"No, but you--" Sora gestured at him helplessly. "You look like a wolf."

Terry's eyes narrowed; the golden flecks gleamed out at him, and Sora remembered that, scrubby-haired blitzball fan he might be, in this incarnation he had very sharp teeth. "You're not gonna get all up in arms about that, are you?" his neighbor asked, and though that gloomy edge lingered, something about the tone had turned knife-like, dangerous. "The committee's already swung by on moving day to make it pretty clear. Not allowed to eat Little Red Riding Hood or her grandmother, so if you've got a girlfriend who likes to go walking in woods, just dress her up in a red hood or something. I was born this way--"

"--Terry--"

"--and it's not like I picked, so you can just _shut the hell up_, all right?"

He was breathing fast, shoulders hunched, and Sora's mind kept spinning back to the one certainty around which everything else orbited: that truthful look of total misery, the claws digging into his jersey. _But -- wasn't it just yesterday that everybody was human?_ It didn't matter. Sora didn't know what was going on yet, but he did know what to do. "I'm sorry, Terry," he said, honestly. "That wasn't what I meant. I'm just used to--"

"Save it." Terry turned on his heel, stepping towards his own door.

Seifer caught him by the arm. "Hey." He gripped hard until the fur bristled around his fist, and shook Terry. Before the wolf could react, he'd slammed his wrist against the wall, pinning him in place. Suddenly Rai and Fuu no longer looked like halves of a comedy duo, but were united behind Seifer, each part of an inescapable barrier. "You want to start a disturbance?" Seifer asked. "Fine. But you're going to have to reckon with Ansem's disciplinary committee." At his right shoulder, Rai cracked his knuckles. "Real up close and personal. So keep it down. All right, fur-twerp?"

Terry only looked at him. In that solitary glance Sora recognized despair. "Sure," he repeated softly. Seifer let him go. Terry turned without speaking to his door. It took him five tries to fit the key into the lock; and still Sora couldn't find the words to speak before he slid into the darkness and closed the door behind him.

Seifer cracked his neck, then turned back towards his own room. "Let's go," he said. It sounded like an order, and Fuu and Rai took it as such. Together, with military precision, they started down the hall. Seifer himself hesitated only a bare breath in the frame before he grinned at Sora - a wide, mean grin. "Don't wait up," he said with a wave, then went off after his friends.

The tension that had thrummed through the room snapped. In its wake, Sora felt his shoulders slump. He yawned again, checking the clock to see how much time he had before his next class. As the numbers filtered through his thoughts, an appointment struck him and he bolted upright. "Eight -- oh, _breakfast_!" It took him five seconds to grab a shirt out of the nearest box, check it for spiders and slide into it before he was out the door and running, just in time to catch Riku before his first class.

If he ran really, really fast.

* * *

"Pull it together, Sora," Riku said, dry and amused, as Sora collapsed into the seat next to him. He glanced up from a stack of what looked like tangled, elaborate doodles until Sora realised that they were too precise to be anything other than graphs. He tried not to gape and succeeded, mostly because his lungs were too busy hauling air in whatever manner they could get away with - up to and including osmosis. "You okay? You look like you just ran across campus."

"Dorm," Sora croaked, and lolled in his seat. As soon as he'd recovered enough breath to speak, he burst out, "I'm sorry I missed breakfast!"

"What? Hey, it's okay. Kairi wasn't there either, so," Riku let his mouth curl, still scrawling precise notes onto his papers, "it's not like you missed much."

Sora cocked his head. It wasn't like Riku not to tease him for things - though Riku hadn't behaved much like the Riku he remembered since Sora had come back. "What are you talking about? I haven't seen you guys in _months_. _And _I missed breakfast." Abruptly, the rest of Riku's words caught up with him, and Sora frowned. "What do you mean, Kairi wasn't there? Did she..."

"She got home okay, human-shaped and everything--"

Sora sat up. "Human-shaped? _You mean you remember what happened yesterday_?" His pitch startled several other students, who all peered up from their identical stacks to treat him to a scowl mathematically-designed to give off the maximum air of disapproval. In ordinary circumstances, he would have waved them an apology, but his hands were full.

Literally.

Gripping Riku's shoulders, he demanded, "What do you remember?"

"Easy, Sora." Riku fended him off easily, though the brief tussle sent his papers fluttering across the desk. As they scattered, he made a brief face. "I'm going to have to re-organize those, you know."

"Riku--"

He raised a brow at Sora. "What's up with you this morning? Yesterday we went to your dorm to wait for you. Then, all of a sudden, the whole campus turned into animals. Kairi was a duck and I was a cat." Tension flared through his shoulders. In a low voice, Riku said, "You didn't start forgetting things again, did you?"

"Huh?" Sora fell into his seat again, waving his hands. "No. No. It's just--" and he explained about Terry and Seifer.

"That _is _weird." Riku laid his pencil down, frowning. "I didn't meet anybody like that this morning, so I didn't notice, but..." Thoughtfully, he folded his arms. " So Terry's one of the ones they never got to?"

"Probably not. He said he worked the night shift."

"Then maybe we should check on the people who would have gotten turned back really late. I already checked the news this morning. No reports of mass panic or impromptu stampedes from people just turned into bulls, so I'm guessing it was just campus. We can go see how much things have changed after class. You don't have class until one-thirty, right?"

He was speaking so gently, no bantering note to his voice, but he'd still said _We_. Sora felt himself ease back into the chair as he beamed up at Riku. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Sure," Riku said. Then, under his breath, he added, "If you survive the next two hours."

Sora blinked. "Huh?" Then he realised that the professor had come in while they were talking - a blond man with a nose like a snooty, chiseled rock. He set a large stack of papers onto the desk with a crash and lifted his head.

"I have noticed in the previous week that several have attempted to sneak out of my lectures after attendance," he began without preamble. "To the appalling multitude, I can only say: you shame yourself and your major. Thus far I have been unconvinced by your potential in this course and I shall remain so until you begin to live up to an image more suitable to a math major. In order to provide you with such an opportunity, I have provided a quiz. Anyone who fails to take it immediately fails the course, and I shall take it up with Xigbar to have you promptly expelled." Allowing his words to sink in with a deliberate pause, the professor began to pass out the sheets. "Afterwards, we shall begin axiomatic set theory..."

He'd already gotten two professors to hate him for no apparent reason. The idea of making a third - whose course he wasn't even taking - was a little much. Sora swallowed hard and accepted the paper dumped on him by an oblivious neighbor.

"Good luck," Riku said unsympathetically, grinning a little. "Professor Vexen always grades them in front of the class, too. He gave us two last week." Seizing his own test, he started to scribble calculations down. Sora reached for Roxas, but--

_No way, _Roxas said. _Anything that starts with 'axiomatic' is not something I want to deal with. You're on your own.  
_

* * *

"Hey, considering it was Vexen, you got off pretty light," Riku said as Sora staggered out into the hall, an hour and thirty minutes later (Vexen had loosed them early in what he claimed was a fit of disgust at math majors today). Riku himself had scored fairly high, a fact evident in the casual swagger as he sauntered down the hall. "Leon's his usual favorite to pick on, but..." He glanced around. "He probably had some grad student thing to do. You want to grab lunch or check on people first?"

"Lunch," Sora groaned, feeling his head. He was pretty sure that the voices hollowly singing _The graphs! The horrible, horrible graphs!_ weren't Roxas.

_No,_ Roxas said. _Roxas is the one telling you that the shift made sentient animals normal in reality. At least, I think that's what it did._

"Look on the bright side," said Riku, King of Pain, before Sora could consider Roxas's hypothesis. "If you'd come next week, you'd have had to deal with Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. I'm pretty sure that's--"

"_Sure that isn't your name? Then why'd you flinch when I say it? Don't tell me the angst-party's limited to one._"

He knew that voice - knew it but couldn't place it for all of a moment before someone else, a stranger, said something soft and low and that drawling, fluid scorn broke into a flood of obscenities. Beckoning to Riku, he started to run - but he didn't have far to go. Just a dash around the corner and they were there at the scene. Seifer had found someone else to threaten. But the man backed up against the wall couldn't look more different from Terry, who had been sullen and furious and, underneath it all, scared to death of this man with the nasty grin and the kind of scar they brought back from wars. This man looked nearly bored.

"I don't know you," he said. "Get out of my way. I'm missing a class."

"That's not all you'll be missing when I'm done with you," Seifer said. Nobody could have missed the savage, exultant glee to the words. He would have said more, but the man punched him in the face. Struck off-guard, he went sprawling head over heels, tumbling backwards while his prey turned away with a shrug.

He made it half a step towards the nearest stairwell before Rai and Fuu blocked off his exits. "WAIT," Fuu spat. The word emerged like a snarl.

"You're gonna pay for that, y'know?" Rai was nearly dancing as he stood. "We ain't gonna let nothin' go by--"

"Back off!" Seifer scrubbed his mouth off with his wrist. His lips split into a bloody grin. Deliberately, he rose to his feet.

The older student only watched him, arms drifting at his sides and head upright. For all Seifer's talk, he looked untouched: brown hair neat and features unperturbed. "Haven't you got better things to do?"

"Leon!" Riku called. Leon glanced back in fleeting answer, dark eyes flickering. This was all Seifer needed. He flung himself forward, knocking over a garbage can to tackle Leon against the wall. Sora threw himself into the fight - or tried to. Fuu seized him by the shoulders and shoved him back. "NO INTERFERENCE."

"Yeah. You may be Seifer's roommate, but that don't give you no standin' to stop Seifer from doin' what he wants, y'know--" Rai was cut off as Sora barreled past him, followed by a determined Riku. Together, each of them gripped one of Seifer's arms as he wound back to punch Leon again - just in time for a shadow to tumble over them.

"Weren't they supposed to teach you morons not to fight in pre-school?" One large arm ruthlessly elbowed Riku and Seifer to one side and shoved Sora to the other. The owner flicked him a brief, startled look before turning back towards the student slumped on the ground. "Leon." He crouched to peer into the grad student's face, though he didn't offer a hand. "You okay, dude?"

One of Leon's eyes had started to blacken and swell, but the indifference remained. He rose with an infuriating steadiness - infuriating, Sora could tell, because Seifer growled as Riku held onto him - and met the speaker's eyes, ignoring the rest of his audience. "Fine. Vexen's class finished?"

"Yeah, I just dropped by. He let out early today. Weren't you supposed to be gradding it up in that class?"

"Yes, Professor Xigbar," Leon started, ignoring the weird use of 'grad' as a verb. The professor grinned.

"Nice."

Leon blinked. "What?"

"You say 'professor' like it should mean 'trash, horrible trash'." His mouth broadened into a filthy smirk. "Say it to Vexen a couple of times while I'm there. I want to see his face turn purple. C'mon." He started to steer Leon away. "He wanted to talk to you about something and it's not like you have better stuff to do. Hey," he added, as Leon opened his mouth to speak, "if you want to go back to getting beaten up, just say the word. I'll let you get right on it."

"This isn't over!" Seifer spat as they turned away, making to lunge before Riku got a hold on him again.

Xigbar tossed him only the briefest glance in passing, but Sora caught the edge of it. He felt himself freeze. It was the kind of look that pierced bone, sharp and shrill as a bullet. "Nah," the professor said, pushing Leon forward. "I'm pretty sure it is."

As soon as they disappeared around the corner, Seifer shoved at Riku. "Let go of me," he said irritably. To Rai and Fuu he snapped, "And what gave you two goons the idea that it was okay to just _let _him get away?"

"But Seifer," Rai protested, "we thought you were gonna let that stuff go after you got here. Remember, she said that we might hafta--"

Fuu nudged him in the ribs. "OUTSIDERS," she said, glaring at Riku and Sora.

Seifer made a show of stretching carelessly, though Roxas saw the wince hovering at the edge of his brows and sent the knowledge along. "Fuu's right, Rai," he said. "We'll talk somewhere else. Let's get out of this place." Each pivoted on their heel and strode from the scene without looking back.

"And that's your roommate," Riku said. He didn't sound impressed. "What's his deal, anyway?"

Sora could only stare helplessly after him. "I don't know..."

"Well," Riku rolled his shoulders with a sigh. "I should check on Leon and talk to Professor Vexen about those last five minutes of class. You go grab some seats by the lakeside cafe. I'll meet you there."

"It's okay. I can come with you!"

"If you don't go now, by the time we get there it'll probably be full." Riku grinned crookedly. "You know how it gets. Come on. Don't tell me you're getting so sentimental that you can't even let me go for five minutes?"

"Okay, okay."

He waited until Sora had made it a few steps away before he spoke again. "Should I be expecting chocolates from you on Valentine's Day?" His voice carried down the hall with perfect clarity.

Whirling, Sora made a face and grinned. "Shut up, Riku."

* * *

The cafe was just emptying of its breakfast crowd, its waiters - barristas? assistants? - replacing the morning menus with lunchtime specials, when Sora arrived. He took the table in shadow by the counter - _easiest place to steal into line_, Kairi's lesson drifted back to him, gentle and chiding - and settled in to wait. He didn't realise that he'd started to drowse until a harsh, snapping voice woke him. Flattening his back against the wall, Sora gripped the edge of the table and tried to figure out why some part of him - a sizeable part, actually - was panicking at the mere sound of that snarl.

"Goo_fyy_." A familiar drawl sounded out the name until its syllables glittered with danger. Oddly, it sounded thicker than he remembered. Sora squinted and tried to place a name, a face, anything, to that sound. "_Students _eat here!"

"Gawrsh, Donald, you know they're gonna hafta see us anyway, right?"

Professor Donald and his assistant, Goofy. Sora hunched down a little in his seat, recollecting the fifty pages of reading due in class tomorrow. Donald seemed like exactly the type of professor who would bring up his assignments outside of class and expect them to have been finished the day they had been assigned.

"But not _today_! Not _now_! Let's go somewhere else!"

"Ya mean, y'wanna walk? I thought the cement hurt your feet now that they're all--"

"Aw, shut up." Subsiding, Donald growled something else under his breath. At length, he added, "I guess we can eat here. _You _order."

Sora could almost hear Goofy beaming. "Gawrsh," he said again. "Thanks, Donald! I like ordering things." Amid the cafe's usual noise, he heard a chair scrape the floor as it was pushed back and the delicate padding of something that - didn't exactly sound like feet. "You okay?" Goofy asked. "You seem kinda down."

"Of course I'm down!" Donald snapped. "We are _going _to get_ fired_."

"Whaddaya mean? We've been teachin' here for years! They're not going to fire us."

Sora was fairly sure that he could hear Donald's glare sizzle the remainder of Goofy's hair. He tipped his chair back to listen more closely. "If the students don't start to take us more seriously," Donald was saying, and then Sora's chair tipped over. He hit the floor well - considering he hadn't needed to fall since he was twelve years old and they were still hoping to learn how to fly - rolled straight across and onto a webbed foot.

"Sorry," he gasped, lurching to a stand, and then he recognized the glittering dark eyes glaring out of that inhuman face. "Professor Donald," Sora said. He hadn't expected this - not someone he'd known. Terry was - he didn't really know Terry. They were the kinds of acquaintances who passed each other in the corridor with vague smiles and vaguer questions about their lives at surface level and carried on. But Professor Donald had sounded, in that first meeting, like he'd really hated Sora, and Sora had resented him for that unnecessary fury, a resentment that curdled to ashes and sourness in the wake of the professor's duck-livid eyes.

"What're you looking at?" Professor Donald growled, and Sora lowered his head.

This, too, was his fault.

_We'll fix it, _Roxas said, from the depths of his mind, words blooming out of nothing. _Both of us. It was a light shift, right? Maybe there's still a way for us to change everyone back._

_Maybe_. Abruptly, Sora smiled at Donald - and at Goofy, too - feeling his heart hammer against his chest. _Yeah. We will. We have to. For everyone._ "I was listening," he told them honestly. "It wasn't exactly my business, so I'm sorry. I won't do it again."

The professor grumbled up at him, then relented. "Are you... Sora?"

"Yep. That's me!"

The duck made a noise like a muted squawk in his throat - a strangely human sound. But then, he didn't look entirely duck-like; like Terry, he'd been trapped in some between-state, feathered but bipedal, intelligent but feral. "Go back to your seat, Sora. I'll see you in class tomorrow. And you'd better have done the reading!"

Sora nodded. A familiar head of pale hair flickered at the corner of his eye, and he turned to see Riku waving at him from the counter. Glancing back, he nodded at the two. "See you in class tomorrow, professor, Goofy!"

"Bye, Sora!" Goofy waved with a warm, silly smile while Donald folded his arms and stared at his empty plate, mired in thoughts even Sora couldn't have heard, no matter how he strained.

* * *

The rest of the day drifted by without event. Professor Belle, who taught Introduction to Modern Poetry, had set them on easy poems that clung to memory long after class had ended. Sora spent an hour under a tree by the English building, puzzling out the poems she'd assigned. He and Roxas were still trying to untangle the last verses (_tell me, what else should I have done? / Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?_) as he headed back to his dorm. The door to Terry's room was closed, but Riku was waiting next to his, hands tucked into his pockets. "Hey," he said, as soon as he glimpsed Sora. "I figured you wouldn't have unpacked yet, so I thought I'd come by and help."

With a grin, Sora unlocked the door. "If we find any more spiders, you're taking them with you."

"Sure, if you think that you can't handle them by yourself." Riku stopped by the threshold as Sora moved deeper into the room, one hand hesitating on the frame. "Uh... Sora?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember how Kairi didn't come with us to lunch today?"

At the mention of Kairi, Sora stopped, fingers still between box flaps as he glanced up. Caution softened Riku's tone into that of a stranger's, and Sora didn't like it. "Why didn't she?"

"She's... going to be really busy. You know, with her parents and all..."

"I thought her parents stopped after she got into Ansem on full scholarship." Riku looked away and muttered something. Sora blinked. "What?"

"I said, they haven't stopped. They never stopped. They're never going to stop. They want her to be a lawyer or something." Riku drew a deep breath. "She's taking five courses and they're pushing her to take six."

"Isn't four the limit?"

"Tell that to them." An old sneer curved on Riku's lip at the mere thought of Kairi's parents. Underachievers, he'd called them once when they'd dragged Kairi home early from a movie night, who'd pushed all their dreams onto their only child. "And she just -- takes it. She won't even let me say anything. She's already talked two professors into letting her take high-level Political Science courses -- she doesn't even like Political Science, and she's studying every night just to keep up with the stuff they're learning." He paused. When Sora didn't speak, he added, "Just thought I'd tell you so that you wouldn't have to ask her. She doesn't really want you to figure it out, you know. But it's not good to let her keep pretending. If she hangs out with us until seven every night, that leaves her about three hours of sleep on weekdays. And we can't..." The rest of the words tumbled from him. He shrugged and let them fall.

Sora's hands opened and closed, helplessly. "We can stop her," he said.

"How?"

"We can... talk to her parents! Tell them that she can't handle so many--"

"You know what they're like, Sora. They'll go to her and she'll tell them that she can, and then they'll just try to kill us for lying." Riku sounded weary. He didn't look much better; his eyes had faded and he'd slumped against the door as if it were the only support keeping him upright. By instinct, Sora moved towards him, laying a hand on Riku's arm. They'd always been able to hold each other up before. He'd never thought that they could reach a point where they'd have to stand alone against their individual lives. It wasn't a nice thought, and after a moment Sora pushed it away.

He watched Riku instead. Riku had always been the hardest to read. It was easy to tell what Kairi was thinking - though sometimes Sora suspected that she just pretended to let them read her thoughts so that they could walk into their wrongful assumptions later - and Sora knew by now that his own expressions were always transparent. But Riku was all opaque looks and enigmatic smiles - for the most part. There had been times before when all his defenses crumbled and his thoughts ran clear as water.

Like now, with Sora's hand tight on his arm, as the worries behind his smile built up to the simplest of crescendos. With a start, Sora recognized the light in his expression.

"Oh," he said. He didn't know why he was surprised by it, couldn't imagine how he'd missed it before. Had it always been this obvious? "Do you love her?"

"I-I guess." Riku's voice cracked a little on the words. His mouth crooked. He watched Sora, gaze hooded and purposeful. "But you don't know the half of it."

-

_to be continued_

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**reviews: **are tasty and delectable.


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